Hindu Vedic Philosophy (The Paramardha Tattwam): Jiddu Krishnamurti - The Flame of Attention

Jiddu Krishnamurti - The Flame of Attention - 5

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The Flame of Attention

Jiddu Krishnamurti

And our education from childhood till we pass, if we are lucky,

through college, university, is to specialize in some form or

another, accumulate a lot of knowledge, store it up in the brain and

act, get a job and hold on to the job skilfully, if you can, for the rest

of one's life; going to the office, from morning till the evening and

dying at the end of it all. This is not a pessimistic attitude or

observation; this is what actually is going on. When one observes

the actuality, the fact, one is neither depressed, optimistic or

pessimistic, it is so.

And one asks, if one is at all serious and responsible: what is

one to do? Retire into monasteries? Form some commune? Go off

to Asia and pursue Zen meditation or other forms of meditation?

One is asking seriously this question. When you are confronted

with this crisis in consciousness, the crisis is not over there outside

of us. The crisis is in us. You know that saying, "we have seen the

enemy and the enemy is us".

So the crisis is not economic, war, the bomb, the politicians, the

scientists, but 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. So our responsibility is not some kind of

altruistic action, political, or economic, but to comprehend the

nature of our being; why we human beings, we have lived on this

beautiful lovely earth, why we have become like this.

So if you are willing, if it is your responsibility, we can perceive

together the nature of our consciousness, the nature of our being.

This is not, as we said, a lecture. A lecture being a dissertation on a

particular subject giving or pointing out information; that's what

one means by a lecture. But here we are trying together, you and

the speaker together, not separately, together, to observe the

movement of this consciousness and its relationship to the world,

whether that consciousness is individual, separate, or that

consciousness is the whole of mankind. Do you understand? We

are educated from childhood to be individuals, with your separate

soul - if you believe in that kind of stuff - or you have been trained,

educated, conditioned to think as an individual. We think because

you have a separate name, separate form, that is dark, light, tall,

short, fair, black, and so on, and your particular tendency, we think

we are separate individuals, our own particular experiences and so

on. Now we are going to question that very idea: whether we are

individuals.

It doesn't mean that we are a kind of amorphous beings, but

actually are we individuals, though the whole world maintains,

both religiously and in other ways, that we are separate individuals.

And from that concept, and perhaps from that illusion, each one of

us trying to fulfil, become something. In that becoming something

we are competing against another, fighting another. So if we

maintain that way of life, we must inevitably cling to nationalities,

tribalism, war. Why do we hold on to nationalism? The passion

behind it; which is what is happening now - the British against the

Argentines, the Jew against the Arab, Arab against the Jew, and so

on. Why do we give such extraordinary passionate importance to

nationalism; which is essentially tribalism? Why? Is it because in

tribalism, holding on to the tribe, to the group, there is certain

security; not only physical security but psychological security,

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 theoretically; and if one

wants to live on this earth, which is our earth, not yours or mine,

American or the Russian or the Hindu, it's our earth to live on, then

there is no nationalism at all. There is only human existence. One

life; it's not your life or my life, it's living the whole of life. And

this tradition of individuality has been perpetuated by religions

both in the East and in the West; individual saviour for each

individual, and so on, so on. Now is this so? You know, it is very

good to doubt, very good to have a mind that questions, doesn't

accept; a mind that says, we cannot possibly live any more like

this, in this brutal, violent manner. So doubt, questioning, has

extraordinary importance; not just accept the way of life one has

lived perhaps for 50, 60 or 30 years, or the way one has lived for a

million years. So we are questioning the reality of individuality. Is

your consciousness - do we understand by the meaning of that

word, to be conscious, the content of your consciousness, to be

conscious means to be aware, to know, to perceive, to observe - is

your consciousness with its content, the content being your belief,

your pleasure, your experience, your particular knowledge which

you have gathered, either through some particular external subject

or the knowledge you have gathered about yourself, your fears, the

attachments, the pain, the agony of loneliness, the sorrow, the

search for something more than mere physical existence; all that is

one's consciousness with its content, the content makes the

consciousness. Without content there is not the consciousness as

we know it. Here there is no room for argument. It is so. Your

consciousness, which is very complex, contradictory, with such

extraordinary vitality, that consciousness, is it yours? Is thought

yours? Or there is only thinking, which is neither East nor West,

there is only thinking, which is common to all mankind, whether

they are rich or poor, technically, technicians with their

extraordinary capacity, or the monk who withdraws from the world

and is consecrating himself to an idea, is still thinking.

Is this consciousness common to all mankind - common in the

sense not degrading? Is this consciousness yours or also the rest of

mankind? Wherever one goes, one sees suffering, pain, anxiety,

loneliness, insanity, fear, seeking security, caught in knowledge;

the urge of desire, loneliness, it is common, it is the ground on

which every human being stands. Your consciousness is the

consciousness of humanity, the rest of humanity. It's logical; you

may disagree; you may say, my consciousness is separate, and it

must be separate; but is it so? If one understands the nature of this,

that you are the rest of mankind, though we may have a different

name, we may live in different parts of the world, educated in

different ways, affluent or very poor, when you go behind the mask

deeply, you are like the rest of mankind: aching, loneliness,

suffering, despair, neurotic; belief, believing in some illusion, and

so on. Whether you go to the East or West, this is so. You may not

like it; you may like to think that you are totally independent, free

individual. But when you observe very deeply, you are the rest of

humanity. You may accept this as an idea, an abstraction, as a

marvellous concept; but idea is not the actual. An abstraction is not

what actually is taking place. But most of us make an abstraction

of 'what is' into an idea, and then pursue the idea, which is really

non-factual.

So, if that is so, that is, if my consciousness and yours, with all

its content - the content in itself is contradictory, confused,

struggling against each other; fact and non-fact; wanting to be

happy, being unhappy; wanting peace, living without violence and

yet being violent - our consciousness in itself is disorder. It is the

root of dissension. And until we understand, go into it very deeply,

and discover total order, we shall have always disorder in the

world.

So a serious person, I mean by that word, not easily dissuaded

from the pursuit of understanding, the pursuit of delving deeply

into himself, into his consciousness, which is the common

consciousness of all man; a man who is not easily persuaded by

amusement, entertainment, which is perhaps sometimes necessary,

but to pursue consistently every day into the nature of man, that is,

into yourself, to observe what is actually going on within oneself;

and from that observation action takes place. Not, what shall I do

as a separate human being, but action which comes out of total,

holistic observation of life. By that word holistic we mean, a

healthy, sane, rational, logical, and a perception that is whole,

which is holy, h-o-l-y. We are using that word in that sense,

holistic. Now is this possible? Is it possible for a human being like

us who are laymen, not specialists, laymen, is it possible for us to

look at this, look at the contradictory, confusing consciousness as a

whole; or must we take each part of it? Please just listen for a few

minutes, if you are interested.

I want to understand myself, my consciousness. I know from

the very beginning it's very contradictory; wanting one thing, and

not wanting the other thing; saying one thing and doing another. I

know belief separates man. I believe in whatever it is, Jesus or

Krishna or something, or I believe in my own experience which I

hold on to; or the knowledge which I have accumulated through 60

years or 40 years or 10 years, that becomes extraordinarily

important. I cling to that. So I recognize belief destroys and divides

people. And yet I can't give it up because belief has strange vitality.

It gives me a certain sense of security. I believe in god, there's an

extraordinary strength in that. But god is invented by man. If we

are all, as some people believe, we are all the children of god, god

must be an extraordinary human being, extraordinary person,

because if we observe what we are, we are miserable entities, and

god must be also rather miserable about all this.

So god is the projection of our own thought, our own demands,

our own hopeless despair and opposite of all that. Or I believe in

some form of gurus, you know, all that, belief. Why do we have

beliefs at all? A mind that is crippled by belief is an unhealthy

mind. There must be freedom. That's again a very complex

problem; what is freedom? - which we won't go into now. So, is it

possible for me, for you, to delve deeply into this consciousness,

not persuaded, not guided by psychologists, psychiatrists and so

on, to delve deeply into ourselves and find out; so that we don't

depend on anybody, including the speaker. In asking that question,

how shall we know the intricacies, the contradictions, the whole

movement of consciousness? Shall we know it bit by bit, take for

instance, we took just now belief. And also in our consciousness,

we are hurt. Each human being from childhood is hurt. Is hurt by

the parents, psychologically I am talking about. Hurt in the school,

through comparison, through competition, through saying, you

must be first-class at this subject, and so on, in college, university,

and life, this constant process of being hurt. We all know this. We

are all human beings, we are hurt, deeply; of which we may not be

conscious. And, from that hurt, there are all forms of neurotic

actions. That's part of our consciousness; part of our hidden or

open awareness that one is hurt.

Now is it possible not to be hurt at all? Because it's a very

important question to ask. Because the consequences of being hurt

are building a wall round oneself, withdrawing in our relationship

with each other in order not to be hurt more. In that there is fear, 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, but rather enquire why and what is it that is being

hurt? This hurt is, as we said, part of our consciousness; from

which various neurotic contradictory actions take place. So we are

examining, as we examined belief, we are examining hurt, which is

part of our consciousness - please, it is not something outside of us,

it's part of us. Now what is it that is hurt and is it possible never to

be hurt? Do you understand, a human being that's free, total, never

to be hurt by anything psychologically, inwardly? Isn't it an

important question? And what is that is hurt? We say, that is me, I

am hurt. What is that me? From childhood one has built up, built

an image of oneself. We have many, many images; not only the

images that people give us, but also the images that we ourselves

have built: as an American, that's an image; as a Hindu, as a

specialist. So, the 'me' is the image that I have built about myself,

as a great man, or I am very good at this or that, and that image

gets hurt. Right?

You have an image: you are a marvellous cook, a marvellous

carpenter, great talker; I am not! Great talker, writer, spiritual

being, a leader; we have created these images for ourselves. We

have other images, which we won't go into for the moment. These

images are the whole of me; when I say I am hurt, we mean the

image is hurt. If I have an image about myself - which I have not -

if I have one, you come along and tell me, don't be an idiot, I get

hurt. That is, the image which I have built about myself as not

being an idiot, a silly ass, you come along and say, you are, and

that hurts me. And I carry that image, that hurt, for the rest of my

life. Careful not to be hurt, warding off any statement of my idiocy.

(Laughter) Don't laugh; it's your problem, not mine. Please, it's

very serious, because the consequences of being hurt are very

complex. And from that hurt we may want to fulfil, we may want

to become this or that to escape from this terrible hurt. So one has

to understand it. And is it possible not to have an image about

oneself at all? Why do you have images about yourself? You may

look very nice, bright, intelligent, clear-faced, and I want to be like

you; and if I am not, I get hurt. So comparison may be one of the

factors of being hurt, psychologically. Then, why do we compare?

You understand all these questions?

So can one live a life in the modern world without a single

image? The speaker may say, it is possible; it can be done. But that

requires the understanding of relationship. What is relationship? -

Have we got time to go into that? We have talked over an hour.

You must be tired. If you are treating this as an entertainment,

intellectual or otherwise, then it is just an amusement, something to

do on Saturday morning. But if you are serious, in the deep sense

of that word, committed to the solution of the human problems,

then your brain must be as active as that of the speaker, not just

accept a lot of words. Perhaps some of you are not used to all of

this; because we think along the old traditional lines, habits, and

take the easiest way of life. But this requires a great deal of energy;

so that you find out whether it is possible never to be hurt. And

whether it is possible to live a life without a single belief; which is

dividing the world and human beings and so destroying each other.

The South Americans believe in one thing and the Asiatic, the

Western world believes something else. The ideas, the ideals, the

ideologies, are destroying human beings. So whether one can live

without a single belief; and to discover, never to be hurt, which

means not to have an image about yourself; as a Hindu, as a

Buddhist, as a Catholic, as a Protestant, as a professor; you may

profess, you may teach, you may inform, but the image you have

created about yourself as a professor, not what you profess, you

understand? Is that possible? That's real freedom.

And it is possible when I am called an idiot, because I've an

image about myself, if I have one - to give total attention to that

statement as it is said. You understand? When I have an image

about myself, and you call me an idiot, I react instantly. The

reaction is immediate. As the reaction is immediate, to give

attention to that immediacy. You understand? Am I making myself

clear? That is, to listen very clearly to the idea that I am an idiot.

You called me an idiot; to listen to it attentively, when you listen

completely, there is no reaction. It is the lack of listening acutely

that creates the image. Have you understood this? Suppose I have

an image myself about myself, because I have travelled all over the

world etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I have an image about myself.

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 in 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's only inattention that

creates the centre. You have understood this?

Can one give such attention? You understand? A mind which

has been so slack, a brain which has been confused, disturbed,

neurotic, which has never actually faced anything, which has never

demanded of itself its highest capacity; which is total attention.

And when there is total attention to the statement that I am an idiot,

it has lost totally all its significance. Because when there is

attention there is not a centre which is reacting.

I have finished for this morning. I believe we meet tomorrow

morning. May I get up please?

SAANEN 3RD PUBLIC TALK 15TH JULY 1982

May we continue where we left off the day before yesterday? We

were talking about causation and the effects of that cause. We

always apparently are concerned with the effects, the results, and

try to change or modify the results, the effects. But apparently we

never enquire very deeply into the cause of these effects. We went

into that a little bit the other day and I think it is important to go

into them quite deeply.

We also said that intelligence has no cause. And all our actions,

our ways of thinking have always a ground, a reason, a motive.

And if one ends the cause then what is beyond cause? That's what

we were talking about the day before yesterday. One hopes you

will not mind being reminded again that the speaker is totally,

completely anonymous. The speaker is not important. What is said

is important and to find out for oneself if what is being said is true

or false depends on one's intelligence. We said intelligence is the

uncovering of the false and totally rejecting the false. So please

bear in mind during all these talks and question and answer

meetings that together, in co-operation, we are investigating,

examining, exploring into these problems. The speaker is not

exploring but you are exploring with him. So there is no question

of following him. There is no authority invested in him. I think this

must be said over and over again as most of us are prone, have a

tendency to follow, to accept, specially from those whom you think

somewhat different or spiritually advanced, or all that nonsense. So

please, if one may repeat it over and over again, because our minds

and our brains are conditioned to follow, as you follow a professor

in a university, he informs you and you accept because he certainly

knows mathematics more than perhaps we do. But here it is not a

matter of that kind. We are not informing you. We are not urging

you to accept those things that are said, but rather together in cooperation

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.

So we are going to enquire together what is intelligence? We

are not defining what is intelligence. The dictionary probably has

several meanings to it. Intelligence according to accepted good

dictionaries, says it is gathering together information, reading

between the lines, which are all the activity of thought. And is

thought intelligent? Is thought, our thinking, the way we act, the

whole social, moral world in which we live, or immoral world in

which we live - is all that the activity of intelligence? Then we

begin to enquire into what is intelligence? We said one of the

factors is to uncover, explore, not say this is false and reject it, but

explore 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.

So we have inquired together, together, into the nature of

intelligence. Has intelligence a cause? Thought has a cause - right?

One thinks because one - the very word 'because' implies causation

- one thinks because one has past experiences, past accumulated

information and knowledge, that knowledge is never complete, that

knowledge must go hand in hand with ignorance, and from this

ground of knowledge with its ignorance thought is born. And that

thought must be partial, limited, fragmented because it is the

outcome of knowledge, and as knowledge can never be complete at

any time, therefore thought must be incomplete, insufficient,

limited. And we use that thought not recognizing the limitation of

it, and living in thought and creating thoughts, the things which

thought has created and worshipping the things that thought has

created. Thought has created wars and the instruments of war.

Thought has created the whole technological world, the terror and

so on. We have gone into that previously.

So is thought, the activity of thought, which is to compare, to

identify, to fulfil, to seek satisfaction, to seek security, which is the

result, the cause of thinking - and is thought intelligent? Please,

you understand my question? Don't wait for the speaker to tell us;

we are together looking at this question of thought, its place, its

activity in relationship to intelligence. We live by thought,

yesterday, tomorrow and today. Is this movement from the past

through the present, to the future, which is the movement of time

and thought, that movement with its cunningness, with its capacity

to adjust itself as no other animal does except a human being - is

that movement of thought born of the past, is that intelligence?

Will that produce confusion?

So thought has a causation, obviously. I want to build a house; I

want to drive a car; I want to be powerful, well-known. I am dull,

but I'll be clever. I will achieve, I will fulfil - all that is the

movement of the centre from which thought arises. Right? It is so

obvious. Through the obvious we are going to penetrate which may

be different. But first we must be very clear of the obvious, that

which has a cause and an effect, that effect may be immediate or

postponed. The movement from the cause to the effect is time. Are

you listening?

I have done something in the past which was not correct; it is

not correct because of various causes, and the effect of that may be

that I pay for it immediately, or perhaps five years later. So where

there is a cause and there is an effect, the interval, whether it is the

shortest interval, a second or years, is the movement of time. So is

intelligence the movement of time? Please think it over, examine it

because this is not a verbal clarification, it is not a verbal

explanation, but the perception of the reality of it, the truth of it.

Because we are going to go into various aspects of our life, our

daily living, not some Utopian concept, or some ideological

conclusion according to which we shall act, but in investigating our

lives, our lives 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 a part of it and call ourselves individuals. We went

into that the other day very carefully.

So we are saying, asking, where there is a cause there is an

ending. If I have tuberculosis the cause is my coughing and the

blood and all the rest of it, and that cause can be cured and the

effect will disappear. Please follow this carefully, examine this

carefully - I won't use the word follow, forgive me. We are saying

where there is a cause the effect can be ended with the ending of

cause. Right? And all our life is the movement of causation: I like

you, you are my friend. You flatter me, I am delighted. I flatter

you. You say something unpleasant, I hate you. In all this

movement there is a causation - right? Of course. We are asking: is

there a life, a living without causation? We must understand first

the implications of ending. You understand? I end anger or greed

in order to achieve something else. I love you because you are my

audience. That is, you flatter me, I fulfil myself in talking to you,

and I feel sad or depressed when there is no audience. So there is

always a cause and an ending. So we are enquiring: what is it to

end? Is ending a continuation, a continuation? I end something and

begin something else, which is another form of the same thing. Are

you following? We must go slowly, we must go into it very

carefully.

You see to go into this very deeply one has to understand the

conflict of the opposites - right? The conflict of duality. I am

greedy, one is greedy and for various, social, economic, moral

reasons one must end it. In the ending of it there is a cause because

I want something else. The something else is the result of the

cause. I have not really ended the greed, but I have replaced the

greed by something else - right? I am violent, one is violent by

nature because that violence has been inherited from the animal

and so on, we won't go into that. We are violent human beings. The

cause of that violence may be very complex but the result of that

complex causation is violence. I want to end violence because I

think it is too stupid. And so in ending I am trying to find a field

which is non-violent, which has no shadow of violence in it. But I

haven't really ended violence, only I have transmuted or translated

that feeling into another feeling but the feeling is the same. Have

you got it? I wonder if you capture this? Are we co-operating

together in this? We will put it in ten different ways.

You see if thought has cause, which it has, then the ending of

cause doesn't mean thoughtlessness. Or something totally different.

If it is something totally different then it has no cause - right?

Please understand this. Don't go to sleep please. This is not an

intellectual entertainment or verbal exchange, but if we go into it

very carefully, deeply, it will affect our daily life because that may

be the ending of conflict. Because our life is in conflict, our

consciousness is in conflict, it is messy, confused, contradictory.

And our consciousness is the result of thought - right? And because

thought has a causation our consciousness has a cause. And what

has a cause, and the movement of that cause as effect is time. We

went into that. Is there a way of observing without cause? You

understand my question? I want to observe all my complex life, my

contradictions, one's imitation, conformity, the various conclusions

with their opposites, all that is a movement of causation - right? Of

course. I can end that causation by will, by a desire to have an

orderly life. The orderly life may be born out of a causation - right?

Because I am disorderly. So when discovering the disorderliness of

my life and wishing to have an orderly life that orderly life has a

causation, and therefore it is not orderly - right? Is this clear?

It is a very complex subject and I hope you will have patience to

go into it.

So has intelligence a cause? Obviously not. Right? I will go into

it. What is order? There is the order of law based upon various

experiences, judgements, necessities, convenience, to keep out the

ill-doers and so on. So what we call order, social order, ethical

order, political order and so on has essentially a basis, a

background, a cause. Now we are asking: has order a cause? We

are going to investigate together. Now do we recognise, see, how

our lives are disorderly? Disorderly being contradictory,

conforming, following, accepting, denying what we may want and

accepting something else. The conflict between the various

opposites, that is disorder. Right? Because I accept one form of

thought as order, but I think also its opposite. The opposite may

create disorder so I am living always within the field of these

opposites - right? So will disorder end, completely end in my life,

in our lives, if I want order? I want to live peacefully, I want to

have a pleasant life, companionship and so on and so on, that

desire is born out of this disorder. Get it? So the opposite is born

out of this, out of its own opposite. I am angry, I hate, I mustn't

hate, therefore I must try not to hate, and not to hate is the outcome

of my hate - right? If there is no hate it has no opposite - right? So

the ending of hate has no result. I wonder if you capture all this? I

see not.

You see thought has created disorder. Let's see that fact.

Thought has created disorder in the world through nationalities,

through division, I am a Jew, you are an Arab, I believe and you

don't believe - you follow? Those are all the activities of thought,

which in itself is divisive, in itself, it can't bring unity, because in

itself it is divisive, fragmented. That which is fragmented cannot

see the whole - right? So I discover that my consciousness is

entirely in disorder and I want order, hoping thereby I will end

conflict. There is a motive. That motive is the cause of my desire to

have an orderly life - right? So order is born there out of disorder -

right? Therefore that order perpetuates disorder, which is

happening in the political, religious and other fields. I wonder if

you see that?

Now let's go back. Now I see the cause of disorder. I don't want

to move away from disorder. I see the cause of it, that I am

contradictory, that I am angry, the confusion, I see it. I see the

cause of it. I am not moving away from the cause or the effect. I

am the cause and I am the effect. Do you see that? I am the cause

and the things that happen is myself also. So any movement away

from that is disorder - right? I wonder if you get it?

So the ending without a future - right? The ending of 'what is'

has no future. Any future projected by my demand for order is still

the continuation of disorder. So is there an observation of my

disorder and the ending of it without any cause? You get it? You

understand? I am violent. One is violent. One wants to be famous.

One wants so many things. And there is violence in human beings.

The cause of that violence is essentially a self-centred movement -

right? Right? You want, you are violent because you are selfcentred.

I am also violent because I am self-centred. Therefore

there is a battle between us - right? This is obvious. So there is

violence in you. Thought is not pursuing non-violence, which is a

form of violence. If you see that very clearly then there is only the

concern with violence. The cause of that violence, as we said, may

be so many contradictory demands, so many pressures and so on

and so on, we can go into all that but I don't want to go into all that

for the moment. So there are many causes. One cause of violence is

this self. The self being, it has many aspects, it hides behind many

ideas, I am an idealist because that appeals to me and I want to

work for that ideal, but in the working for that ideal I am becoming

more and more important, or I cover up that by the ideal and the

very escape from myself is part of myself - right? This whole

movement is the factor of violence. I want to kill others because by

killing them there may be a better world - you know all the stuff

that goes on.

So is there an observation of disorder, seeing the cause of that

disorder, and the ending of it without ending of it? You understand

my question? Is this clear or not? Perhaps I smoke. It is a habit. A

habit which I want to break, I want to break it because I want to be

healthy, it is affecting my heart and my brain, my activity and so

on and so on, therefore I want to end it. There is a motive behind it

- right? I am really not ending it. I substitute smoking for

something else, which is habit - right? So is there an ending of

habit, an ending of it completely? Not replacing it by something

else? Goodness, I have explained it in ten different ways. Is this

clear? Can we move away from that?

So our life has many causes, the living. Is there a way of living

without a single cause? Please enquire into this. It is a marvellous

enquiry even, to put that question demands some deep searching to

find out. I want security therefore I follow my guru. I am not

following, I want security, I may put on his robes or copy what the

man says and so on and so on but deeply I want to be safe. And I

cling to some idea, some picture, some image. And the image, the

idea, the conclusion, the person can never bring about security. So

I have to enquire into security. Is there such a thing as security?

Not physically, outwardly, there must be outwardly, inwardly I am

talking about. Because I am uncertain, confused and you say, you

are not confused, I will hold on to you. Because my demand is to

find some kind of peace, hope, some kind of quietness in my life.

You are not important but my desire is important. I worship you. I

will do whatever you want to say, I will follow you. I am silly

enough to do all that but the moment I enquire into the cause of it I

discover deeply I want this protection, this feeling "I am safe".

Now is there security psychologically - or rather can there ever be

security psychologically? The very question implies the demand

for intelligence. You understand? Putting that very question is an

outcome of intelligence. But if you say, "No, there is always

security in my symbol, my saviour, in this, in that" - then you won't

move away from it. But if you begin to enquire, look, then you are

bound to ask is there security?

So if there is a cause for security, it is not secure - right?

Because the cause is more important than the desire for security.

So has intelligence a cause? We have come back to that. Right? Of

course not.

So has love a cause? Come on, you must answer this question.

Look at it sirs, please take time, look at it very closely, let us go

into it very carefully. We said intelligence has no cause, therefore

it is not your intelligence and my intelligence, it is intelligence. It is

light. Where there is light there is no your light or my light; the sun

is not your sun or my sun. It is light, the heat, the clarity of light.

Has love a cause? If it has not then love and intelligence go

together. You follow? You see this? When one says to one's wife

or one's girl-friend, "I love you", what does it mean? I love god -

one loves god. Why? You don't know anything about that bird and

you love him, because there is fear, there is a demand for security,

there is the vast weight of tradition, the book says so, it gives you

comfort - right? So you say, "I believe in god". But if there is no

fear and the discovery that intelligence is total security, and that

love is something beyond all causation - you understand? - which

is order. And then the universe is open, because the universe is

order - right? This is all clear.

Let us go into the question of what is intelligent relationship?

Not the relationship of thought with its image. We will go into that.

We will have to go into this a little more. Our brains are

mechanical - right? Mechanical being repetitive, never being free,

struggling within the same field, thinking it is free by moving from

one corner to the other in the same field, which is choice, and

thinking that choice is freedom, which is repeated. "I am free

because I can choose to go to Zurich." But if I lived in Russia I

cannot. Whatever place I wanted to go to there. Right?

So one's brain, which has evolved through time - right? - of

course, that brain is not yours or mine, it is brain. Right? And that

brain has become through ages, through tradition, through

education, through conformity, through adjustment, mechanical.

You can observe this in yourself. There may be parts of brain

which may be free but we don't know. Don't assert that. Don't say,

"Yes, there is part of me that is free", that is meaningless. But the

fact remains that the brain has become mechanical, traditional,

repetitive which has its own intelligence - right? Isn't it? Do you

see that? No? It has - I won't use the word intelligence - it has its

own cunningness, its own capacity to adjustment, to discern. But it

is always within a limited area because thought itself is

fragmented. And thought has its home in the brain, in the cells and

so on. So, scientists are saying the same thing in different words.

Now, the brain has become mechanical. I am a Christian. I am a

Hindu, I believe, I have faith, and I don't have faith, I am not a

Christian - you follow? Which is all repetitive process, which is

reaction to another reaction, which is mechanical. Now this brain,

the human brain, has been conditioned, and being conditioned it

has created its own artificial, mechanical intelligence. I will keep

that word - mechanical intelligence. Like a computer. They are

trying to investigate, spending billions and billions of dollars and

money to find out if a computer can be exactly like the brain.

Probably they will. So we are asking: is thought, which is born out

of my memory, knowledge and so on, in the brain, and so thought

is mechanical - right? It may invent but it is still mechanical.

Invention is totally different from creation. I mustn't enter into that.

So the brain being almost, with an occasional flare, totally

different from the mechanical process, but essentially it is

repetitive, mechanical. And thought is trying to discover a way of a

different life, a different social order. Thought is trying to discover

it - right? And the discovery of a social order by thought is still

within the field of confusion - right? We are asking then: is there

an intelligence which has no cause and therefore from that

intelligence act in our relationship, and not the mechanical state of

relationship which exists now?

Are you all getting tired? (Audience: No.) It is too easy to say

you are not tired.

Look sirs: our relationship is mechanical. I have certain

biological urges and you fulfil them. I demand certain comforts,

certain companionship because I am lonely, I am depressed and by

holding on to you perhaps that depression will disappear. That is

my relationship with you, intimate or otherwise, has a cause, a

motive, a ground from which I establish a relationship with you -

right? Biological, sex and so on. That is mechanical. This has been

happening for a million years, which is, there is a conflict between

a woman and a man, a constant battle, each pursuing his own line,

never meeting, like two railway lines which never meet. This

relationship is the activity of thought and therefore limited. And

wherever there is limitation there must be conflict - right? Any

form of association, I belong to this group, and you belong to

another group - association. You belong to this group - so where

there is separate associations there is solitude, isolation, where

there is isolation there must be conflict - right? This is a law, not

invented by the speaker, it is so. Right?

So thought is ever in limitation and therefore isolating itself.

Therefore in relationship where there is activity of thought there

must be conflict. Get it? No, but see the reality of it. See the

actuality of this fact, not as an idea, as a something that is

happening in my life, in one's active daily life: divorces, quarrels,

hating each other, jealousy. You know all about it. The misery of it

all. The wife wants to hurt you, is jealous of you, and you are

jealous - you follow? Which are all reactions, which are repetitive

and therefore the activity of thought in relationship must be

mechanical and therefore brings conflict. Right? That is a fact.

Now how do you deal with a fact? Do you understand my

question? Here is a fact: my wife and I quarrel. She hates me. And

also - you follow? - the response, the mechanical response, the

hate. And I discover that it is the remembrance of things that have

happened and that memory is stored in the brain, it continues day

after day. And my whole thinking is a process of isolation - right?

And she also is isolating. We never discover the truth of the

isolation. That wherever there is isolation of any kind, putting on

purple robes, or green robes - you follow? - must be a factor of

isolation, nationalism and so on, and it must breed conflict. Now

that is a fact. Now how do I look at that fact? What am I to do with

that fact? You understand my question? Please, I am not

answering, you are answering, you are questioning it, you are

putting this question to yourself. What is your response? How do

you face this fact? With a motive? With a cause? Please, be

careful, don't say, "No". My wife hates me. And I smother it over

but I also hate her, dislike her, don't want to be with her, because

we both of us are isolated. That is a fact. I am ambitious, she is

ambitious, for something else. So we are operating in our

relationship in isolation. Now what happens? I face the fact. You

are facing the fact, not I. You are facing the fact. Do you approach

it, the fact, with reason, with a ground, with a motive? So how do

you approach it? Without a motive? Without cause? When you

approach it without a cause what then happens? Please watch it.

Please don't jump to something, watch it in yourself. So far I have

mechanically approached this problem with a motive, with some

reason, a ground from which I act. And I see the foolishness of

such an action because it is the result of thought and so on. So then

is there an approach to the fact without a single motive? That is, I

have no motive. She may have a motive, or I may have a motive

and she has not. Then if I have no motive how am I looking at the

fact? The fact is not different from me - right? I am the fact. I am

ambition, I am hate, I depend and so on, dependent on somebody, I

am that. So there is an observation of the fact which is myself. And

the observation of the fact, which is myself, without any kind of

reason, motive. Is that possible?

If I don't do that I live perpetually in conflict. And you may say

that is the way of life. If you accept that is the way of life, that is

your business. That is your pleasure. That is what your brain,

tradition, habit tells you, that is the inevitable. But when you see

the absurdity of such acceptance then you are bound to ask this

question. All this travail is myself, I am the enemy, not you. I have

met the enemy and discovered it is me. So can I observe this whole

movement of me, the self, separate, isolated, tradition, the

acceptance that I am separate, which becomes foolish when you

examine the whole field of consciousness of humanity. I am the

entire humanity, which we went into, consciousness, my

consciousness is common.

So I have come to a point in understanding what is intelligence.

We said intelligence is without a cause, as love is without a cause.

If love has a cause, it is not love, obviously. If I am intelligent

because the government asks me, I am intelligent because I am

following you, I am intelligent because I have worked in a factory,

I have a great skill. We don't call all that intelligence, that is

capacity. Intelligence has no cause. Therefore am I looking at

myself with a cause? You understand? Are you following this? An

I looking at this fact that I am thinking, working, feeling, in

isolation? And that isolation must inevitably breed everlasting

conflict. And that isolation is myself. I am the enemy, not the

Argentines, or the Russians. I am the enemy. Now how do I look at

myself without a motive? When I look at myself without a motive,

is there myself? Myself is the cause, the effect, myself is the result

of time, which is movement from cause to effect. So when I look at

myself, at this fact, without any cause, there is the ending of

something and the beginning of something totally new. Right? We

had better stop now.

BROCKWOOD PARK 3RD PUBLIC TALK 4TH

SEPTEMBER 1982

We have got two talks, today and tomorrow morning. I think we

ought to talk over together whether it is at all possible to live at

peace in this world. Considering what is happening on the earth,

where man is living, he has brought about a great deal of chaos -

wars and the terrible things that are going on in the world. This is

not a pessimistic or optimistic point of view but just looking at the

facts as they are. Apparently it is not possible to have peace on this

earth, to live with friendship, with affection, with each other in our

lives. And to live at peace, to have some peace with oneself and the

world, one needs to have a great deal of intelligence. Not just the

word peace and strive to live a peaceful life, which then becomes

merely 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 the old fashioned word - whether

one can live at all with a certain quality of a mind and a heart that

is at peace with itself. Not everlastingly striving, striving in

conflict, in competition, in imitation and conformity but to live not,

a satisfied life, not a fulfilled life, not a life that has achieved some

result in this life, some fame or some notoriety, or some wealth but

to have a quality of peace. We ought to talk about it together. We

ought to go into it co-operatively to find out if it is at all possible

for us to have such peace, not peace of mind, that just will be a

piece, a small part, but to have this peculiar quality of undisturbed

but tremendously alive, undisturbed, tranquil, quiet, with a sense of

dignity, without any sense of vulgarity, whether one can live such a

life.

I do not know if one has asked such a question, surrounded by

total disorder. I think one must be very clear about that: there is

total disorder outwardly, every morning you read a newspaper

there is something terrible. Aeroplanes that can travel at such

astonishing speed from one corner of the earth to the other without

having to refuel, carrying great weight of bombs, gases that can

destroy man in a few seconds. To observe all this and to realize

what man has come to, and in asking this question you may say

that is impossible. It is not at all possible to live in this world

utterly, inwardly undisturbed, to have no problems, to live a life

utterly not self centred. How shall we talk about this? Talking,

using words, has very little meaning but to find out through the

words, through communicating with each other, to find or discover,

or come upon, a state that is utterly still. That requires intelligence,

not a phantasy, not some peculiar day dreaming called meditation,

not some form of self hypnosis but to come upon it, as we said,

requires intelligence.

So we have to ask: what is intelligence? As we said the other

day, to perceive that which is illusory, that which is false, not

actual, and to discard it, not merely assert that is false and continue

in the same way, but to discard it completely. That is part of

intelligence. To see, for example, nationalism, with all its peculiar

patriotism, isolation, narrowness, is very destructive in this world,

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 is stupid but keep on, that is essentially part of

stupidity and disorder. It creates disorder. So intelligence is, is it

not, we are talking over together, I am not saying it is, or it is not,

we are investigating very seriously into this question: what is

intelligence which alone can bring about in one's life complete

order and peace? And we said that can come about only when there

is this extraordinary quality of intelligence. And intelligence is not

the clever pursuit of argument, of opposing knowledge,

contradictory opinions and through opinions find truth, which is

impossible but to realize that the activity of thought, with all its

capacities, with all its subtleties, is an extraordinary waste of

thought. It is not intelligence. Intelligence is beyond thought.

Please don't agree with the speaker. We are looking at it, going into

it.

So one has to find out in order to live peacefully what is

disorder? Why we human beings, who are supposed to be

extraordinarily evolved, which I doubt, extraordinary capable in

certain directions, why they live and tolerate disorder in their daily

life. If we can discover the root of this disorder, the cause, and

observe it carefully, that very observation of that which is the

cause, in that observation there is the awakening of intelligence.

Not that there should be order and striving to bring about order.

That is, a confused disorderly mind, brain or activity of one's life,

that disorder, that state of mind which is contradictory, opposing,

such a mind seeking order will still be disorder. I don't know if we

comprehend it? I am confused, uncertain, going from one thing to

another, burdened with many problems, such a life, such a mind,

such a way of living, from there I want order. Then my order is

born out of my confusion, and therefore it is still confused. I don't

know if we see this? Right?

When I chose order out of disorder, the choice is still based on

disorder. When this is clear, then what is disorder, the cause of it?

As we said, it has many causes, the desire to fulfil, the anxiety of

not fulfilling, the contradictory life one lives, saying one thing,

doing totally different things, trying to suppress and to achieve

something. These are all contradictions in oneself. And one can

find out many causes but the pursuit of searching, of search of

causes is endless. Whereas if we could ask ourselves: is there one

cause out of all these many causes, is there one root cause?

Obviously there must be. And we are saying that the root cause of

this is the self, the me, the ego, the personality, which in itself is

put together by thought, by memory, by various experiences, by

certain words, certain qualities and so on. That feeling of

separateness, isolation, that is the root cause of this disorder.

However that self tries not to be self it is still the pursuit of the self

- right? The self may identify with the nation, that very

identification with the larger is still glorified self. And each one of

us is doing that in different ways. So there is the self, which is put

together by thought, that is the root cause of this total disorder in

which we live. If you say it is impossible to get rid of the self, that

is a wrong question. But when we observe what causes disorder,

and as one has become so accustomed to disorder, one has lived in

such disorder, we accept it as natural but when we begin to

question it and go into it, and see that is the root of it, to observe it,

not to do anything about it, then by that very observation begins to

dissolve the centre which is the cause of disorder. Right? Are we

following all this together?

And we said intelligence is the perception of that which is true,

putting aside totally that which is false, and seeing the truth in the

false, and realizing all the activities of thought is not intelligence

because thought itself is the outcome of knowledge, which is the

result of experience, as memory and the response of that memory is

thought. And so knowledge is always limited. That is obvious.

There is no perfect knowledge. So thought, with all its activity and

with its knowledge is not intelligence. Right? So what we are

asking is: what place has knowledge in life? Because all our life is

based on thought. Whatever we do is based on thought. That is

clear. All our activities are based on thought, our relationship is

based on thought. Our inventions, the technological and the nontechnological

is still the activity of thought. The gods we have

created, and the rituals, the mass and the whole circus of all that is

the product of thought. So what place has knowledge in the

degeneration of man? Please you must go into this. You must ask

this question. Can we proceed?

We have accumulated immense knowledge, in the world of

science, psychology, biology, mathematics and so on and so on, a

great deal of knowledge. And we think through knowledge we will

ascend, we will liberate ourselves, we will transform ourselves.

And we are questioning what is 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? Of course it has given us freedom in the sense

that we can travel, communicate from one country to another. It is

all based on knowledge and thought. Better communication, better

systems of learning and so on, the computer and the atom bomb.

All that is the result of a great deal of accumulated knowledge.

And has this knowledge given us freedom, a life that is just, a life

that is essentially good?

So we are again examining those three words: freedom, justice

and goodness. This has been one of the problems, those three

words, in the ancient people who have always struggled to find out

if you can live a life that is just. That word 'just' means to be

righteous, to have righteousness, to act benevolently, to act with

generosity, not deal with hatreds, antagonisms. You know what it

means to lead a just, a right kind of life? Not according to a pattern,

not according to some fanciful projected ideals by thought, but a

life that has great affection, a life that is just, true, accurate. And in

this world there is no justice. You are clever, I am not. You have

power, I haven't. You can travel all over the world, meet all the

prominent people, and I live in a little town, work day after day,

live in a small room. Where is there justice there? And is justice to

be found in external activities? That is, you may become the prime

minister, the president, the head of a big intercontinental business,

great corporations. I may be for ever a clerk, way down below, a

soldier. So do we seek justice out there, which is, we are trying to

bring about an egalitarian state, all over the world they are trying it,

thinking that will bring about justice. Or justice is to be found

away from all that. Please when I am asking, you are asking this

question, not the speaker. The speaker is only putting into words

that which we are enquiring into. Justice involves a certain

integrity, to be whole, integral, not broken up, not fragmented,

which can only take place when there is no comparison. But we are

always comparing, better cars, better houses, better position, better

power and so on. That is measurement. Where there is

measurement there cannot be justice. You are following all this?

Please see it. Where there is imitation, conformity, there cannot be

justice, following somebody. We listen to these words, we don't

see the beauty, the quality, the depth of these things, and we may

superficially agree and walk away from it. But the words, the

comprehension of the depth of it must leave a mark, a seed, justice

must be in there, in us.

And also the word 'goodness', it is a very old fashioned word.

One hardly ever uses that word any more. The other day we were

talking to some psychologist, fairly well known and one used that

word. He was horrified! He said, "That is an old fashioned word,

don't use that word." 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

badness. I don't know if one realizes this. Anything that has an

opposite must have its roots in its own opposite - right? So

goodness is not related to that which we consider bad. It is totally

divorced from the other. So we must look at it as it is, not in a

reaction to the opposite, as a reaction to the opposite. Right?

Goodness implies a quality of deep integrity. Integrity is to be

whole, not broken up, not inwardly fragmented. And goodness also

means a way of life which is righteous, not in terms of church, or

morality or ethical concept of righteousness, but a person who sees

that which is true and that which is false, and sustains that quality

of sensitivity that sees it immediately and acts. And the word

'freedom' is a very complex word. When there is freedom there is

justice, there is goodness. So we have to enquire together what is

freedom?

Please sirs, we are going together in this, not just you are

listening to the speaker. If you are merely listening to the speaker

and getting some ideas out of it - I hope you are not - if you are

merely listening to it then it becomes another lecture, another

sermon and one is fed up with all that kind of stuff. Why don't you

just go to church? But if the words ring a bell, if the words awaken

the depth of that word, if the word opens up a door through which

you see the enormity of that word, not, "I want to be free from my

anger" - that is all rather... or "I have a headache and I must be free

from it". or I have a relationship which is rather tiresome, boring

and I want to get a divorce. Freedom for us has been the capacity

to choose. Because one chooses one thinks one is free - right? That

is so. Because you can choose to go abroad, you can choose your

work, you can choose what you want to do, but in the Totalitarian

world you cannot do all that. There they stamp it all down, they

want you to conform, obey, follow. In the so-called Democratic

world there is still the choice of so-called freedom. Where there is

choice, is there freedom? Please go into it. Who chooses? And why

does one have to choose? When one is very clear in one's capacity

to think objectively, impersonally, not sentimentally, very precise,

there is no need for choice, when there is freedom. That is, when

there is no confusion then there is no choice. It is only a confused

mind that chooses. This is so. Look at yourself. When you choose

between two parliamentarians, you don't know for whom to vote,

so you choose one whom you like, who sounds rather good

verbally, but you know all that game.

So what is freedom? Freedom is not the opposite of

imprisonment - right? Then again it becomes a totally different

kind of escape. So freedom is not escape from anything. That

means a brain that has been conditioned by knowledge, knowledge

is always limited and therefore always living within the field of

ignorance, such brains which is the machinery of thought, through

thought there can be no freedom. I wonder if we understand all

this? That is, we all live with a certain kind of fear - fear of

tomorrow, fear of things that have happened in many yesterdays.

And we seek freedom from that fear. So freedom has a cause. That

is, "I am afraid", I have found the cause of that fear and now I have

got rid of that fear, therefore I am free. Where there is a cause the

effect can end, like a disease, if one has, and the enquiry into that

disease and the cause of that disease, then that disease can be

cured. So if we think in terms of causation and freedom, then that

freedom is not freedom at all. Freedom implies not just in a certain

period of one's life but freedom right through one's life, and

therefore freedom has no cause. Are you following this?

Now with all this being stated let's look at the cause of sorrow

and whether that cause can ever end. Because man, all of us, have

suffered in one way or another, through deaths, through lack of

love, or having love for another and not receiving in return, sorrow

has many, many faces. And man has tried to escape from sorrow,

from the ancient of times. And we still live after all these million

years, we still live with sorrow. Man has shed, or woman too, man

has shed untold tears. There have been wars which have brought

such agony to human beings, great anxiety and apparently we 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?

So let's go together, walk along the same path to find out. Along

the same road, let's walk together to see if we can in our daily life

end this terrible burden which man has carried from the time he has

lived until now. How do you approach such a question? We are

asking, the question is: the ending of sorrow. How do you

approach it? What is your reaction to that question? What is the

state of your mind, your quality when a question of that kind is put

to us? My son is dead, my husband is gone, I have friends who

have betrayed me, I have followed and it has been fruitless after

twenty years. Sorrow has such a great beauty and pain in it. Now

how does each one of us react to that question? Do we 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 you haven't solved the problem. Or you transmit that

sorrow to a symbol, and worship that symbol, as is done in

Christianity. Or as the ancient Hindus have done, it is your lot,

your karma. Or in the modern world you say your parents are

responsible for it, or your society, or you inherited genetically

some kind of genes and you have to suffer for it, and so on. There

have been a thousand explanations. But these explanations have

not resolved the ache and the pain of sorrow.

So how do I approach this question? Do we want to look at it

face to face? Or casually? Or with trepidation? How do I approach

such a problem. Approach means come near to the problem, very

near. That is, 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. So can we not avoid it, not transmit it, not escape

from it, but come with such closeness to it, which means, I am

sorrow? Is that so? Like I am anger. I am envy. But I have also

invented an idea of non-envy. That invention has postponed, put it

off further but the fact is I am envy, I am sorrow. Do you realize

what that means? Not somebody has caused me sorrow, not my son

is dead therefore I shed tears. I will shed tears for my son, for my

wife, for whoever it is, but that is an outward expression of that

pain of loss. That loss is the result of my dependence on that

person, my attachment, my clinging to it, my feeling I am lost

without him. So as usual we try to act upon the symptoms, we

never go to the very root of this enormous problem which is

sorrow. So we are not talking about the outward effects of sorrow.

If you are you can take a drug and pacify yourself very quietly, or

take a pill and pass off for the rest of your life - not for the rest of

your life, you can end it. But we are trying together to find for

ourselves, not be told and then accept, but actually find for

ourselves the root of it.

Is it time that causes pain? Time not by the watch, or by the

day, or sun rise, sunset, but the time that thought has invented in

the psychological realms? You understand my question?

Questioner: What do you mean by psychological time?

K: I will explain sir, have a little patience. We are asking a very

serious question. You are not asking me what is psychological

time. You are asking that question yourself. Perhaps the speaker

may prompt you, put it into words but it is your own question. I

have had a son, a brother, a wife, father, whatever it is, mother, and

I have lost. They are gone. They can never return. They are wiped

away from the face of the earth. Of course I can invent they are

living on other planes, you know all that. But I have lost them,

there is a photograph on the piano, or the mantelpiece. My

remembrance of them is time. How they loved me, how I loved

them. What a help they were. And they helped to cover up my

loneliness. And the remembrance of them is a movement of time.

They were there yesterday and gone today. That is, the record has

taken place in the brain - you understand? A remembrance is a

recording on the tape of the brain - right? And that record is

playing all the time. How I walked with them in the woods, my

sexual remembrances, their companionship, the comfort I derived

from them, all that is gone and the recording is going on. And this

recording is memory, memory is time. Please listen to this, if you

are interested, go into it very deeply. If you are interested, I am not

asking you to. I have lived with my brother, my son, I have 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, for which I am shedding tears in my loneliness. Now

is it - please find out - is it possible not to record? This is a very

serious question. I have enjoyed the sun yesterday morning early,

so clear, so beautiful among the trees, casting a golden light on the

lawn with long shadows. It has been a pleasant, lovely morning.

And it has been recorded. And I have enjoyed the morning. How

beautiful it was. Now the repetition begins. You understand? I have

recorded that which has happened which caused me delight and

that record, like a gramophone or tape recorder, it is repeated. That

is the essence of time. And is it possible not to record at all? That

sunrise of yesterday, look at it, give your whole attention to it, and

not record it, it has gone, that moment of light, that golden light on

the lawn with long shadows is gone, but the memory of it remains.

Look at it and not record. The very attention of looking wipes

away recording.

So we are asking is time the root of sorrow? Is thought the root

of sorrow? Of course. So thought and time are the centre of my life

- right? I live on that. And when something happens which is so

drastically painful, I return to that pattern, to those memories and I

shed tears. I wish he had been here to enjoy that sun when I was

looking at it. Don't you know all this? It is the same with all our

sexual memories, building a picture, thinking about it. All that is

part of time and thought. If you ask how it is possible for time and

thought inwardly to stop - again that is a wrong question. But 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

end sorrow? That is, part of sorrow is my loneliness. I may be

married, have children, responsibilities, belong to a club, play golf

and all the rest of it, if one is lucky. And there I must record,

recording there is knowledge, I must have knowledge. But that

sunrise in the cloudless sky and the blue, and the shadows,

numberless - I am not quoting Keats! - what need there be to

record that? It is ended.

So to find out how to live a life without psychological recording

- do you understand? To give such tremendous attention. It is only

where there is inattention there is recording. I am used to my

brother, to my son, to my wife, to my mother. I know what they

will say. They have said so often the same thing. They have

repeated, they have scolded. I know them. When I say "I know

them" I am inattentive. When I say, "I know my wife", obviously I

don't really know her because a living thing you cannot possibly

know. It is only a dead thing that you can know. That is the dead

memory that you know.

So when one is aware of this with great attention, sorrow has

totally a 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 I love another, have the quality

of that love, when my whole life is based on memories, on that

picture which I have hung on the mantelpiece, put up on the piano,

how can I love when I am caught in a vast structure of memories?

So the ending of sorrow is the beginning of love.

Tomorrow I think we ought to talk over together the nature of

death and meditation. That is enough for this morning.

May I repeat a story? A teacher, a religious teacher, had several

disciples and used to talk to them every morning, about the nature

of goodness, beauty, love. And one morning he gets on the rostrum

and as he is just about to begin talking a singing bird comes, alights

on the window sill and begins to sing, chant. And he sings for a

while and disappears. So the teacher says, "The sermon for this

morning is over." May I get up please?

NEW DELHI 3RD PUBLIC TALK 6TH

NOVEMBER, 1982

If one may point out that we are probing together, questioning

together, doubting, asking, and this is not a lecture. We are

together enquiring, taking a walk together into the whole field of

existence, not dealing with a particular problem but the problem of

man, the problem of human beings. And one of the factors in our

existence is that we live in disorder. And apparently after thirty,

forty thousand years or more we have not been able to live in total

order, like the universe which is in complete order, absolute order,

not relative order, but order that under all circumstances, wherever

we live, socially, politically, and so on, to have within oneself

order. And we are going to probe into that question, together.

Please bear in mind, if I may repeat again and again, the person,

the speaker, is in no way important. The personality of the speaker

has no place in this whatsoever. But what is important is that we,

you and I, the speaker, should unfold the causes of disorder, not

merely listen to the explanation or the description which the

speaker might offer, but together think, observe, go into ourselves,

not in any way selfishly, or self-centredly, egotistically, but to look

at our lives, to look what we have made of the world, why man, the

human being, lives in perpetual disorder outwardly and inwardly.

One may like to live in disorder, then that's quite a different matter,

but to enquire if it is possible to live inwardly first, then outwardly,

not the other way round, but first inwardly, deep within ourselves,

if we can live in complete order.

And also we should be able to discuss, talk over together this

evening, the problem of suffering, and this enormous mystery of

death, because we have only one more gathering here. After

tomorrow we disperse, so if we have time this evening we will talk

about all these things.

Beauty is complete order. But most of us have not that sense of

beauty in our life. We may be great artists, great painters, expert in

various things, but in our own daily life, with all the anxieties and

miseries, we live, unfortunately, a very disordered life. That's a

fact. Even the great scientists, they may be very good, expert in

their subject, but they have their own problems, struggles, pain,

anxiety, like the rest of us. So we are asking together, is it possible

to live in complete order within. Not imposed, disciplined,

controlled, but to enquire into the nature of this disorder, what are

the causes of it, and to dispel, move away, wash away the causes,

then there is a living order like the universe. Order is not a

blueprint, a following of a particular pattern of life, or following

certain systems, blindly or openly, but to enquire into ourselves

and discover for ourselves, not be told, not to be guided, but to

unfold in ourselves the real causes of this disorder.

So, please, this is a talk between you and the speaker, an

exchange. We can't exchange with words with so many people, but

we can each one of us think together. Not think according to my

way or your way, but the capacity to think clearly, objectively, nonpersonally

so that we both are capable of meeting each other so

that we can communicate with each other happily, easily, with

some sense of affection and beauty.

So we are asking, you and the speaker, are asking what are the

causes of this chaos, not only in the world outside of us, which is

the result of our own inward psychological mess, confusion,

disorder, which has produced disorder outwardly, what are the

causes of it. Would you consider desire is one of the factors? We

are going to go into this: desire, fear, pleasure and thought. We will

go into it step by step, slowly, we will take time. So we have to

enquire closely and rather hesitantly, is desire one of the factors.

So we are asking, what is desire. For most of us desire is a potent

factor, desire drives us, desire brings about a sense of happiness or

disaster. Desire varies in its search, desire changes with the objects

of its desire. You are following all this, I hope. So we have to think

together.

Is desire one of the causes? And what is desire? Why is it that

all religions, all so-called religious people have suppressed desire?

All over the world the monks and the sannyasis have denied desire,

though they are boiling inside the fire of desire is burning, they

deny it by suppressing it, or identifying with a symbol, with a

figure, and surrendering that desire to that figure, to that person,

but it is still desire. I hope you are all following all this. And most

of us have, when we become aware of our desires, either we

suppress or indulge, or come into conflict with it - desire for this

and desire not to have it. The battle that goes on with all of us

when there is the drive of desire.

So we should together happily, if we can, easily enquire into the

nature of desire. We are not advocating either to suppress it or to

surrender to it, or to control it, that has been done all over the

world by every religious person, you know, all the rest of it. So we

are examining it very closely so that your own understanding of

that desire, how it arises, its nature, out of that understanding, selfawareness

of it, one becomes intelligent. Then that intelligence

acts, not desire. So we are going to go into this carefully.

First of all are we aware, each one of us, as two people talking

together, of the extraordinary power of desire - desire for power,

desire for certainty, desire for god - if you like that kind of stuff -

desire for enlightenment, desire to follow some system. Desire has

so many aspects, it is as intricate as the weaving of a great master

weaver. So one has to look at it very, very simply, and then the

complexity arises. But if you start with complexity then you will

not go any further. You understand? If you start simply then you

can go very far.

So we are looking at it, at the root and the beginning of desire.

Have you ever noticed how our senses operate? Does one become

aware of our senses - not a particular sense by the totality of the

senses? You understand my question? Senses, the feeling, the

tasting, the hearing, to have all those senses in operation fully. And

when all your senses are active, functioning, have you ever looked

at a tree in that way, have you ever looked at the sea, the

mountains, the hills and the valleys with all your senses? Do you

understand my question? If you do then there is no centre from

which you are looking at things. The whole of your sensory

reactions are complete, not controlled, shaped, suppressed. Unless

you understand this very clearly it is a dangerous thing to say this

because for most of us our senses are partial, either we have very

good taste for clothes and rotten taste for furniture. You know all

this. So our senses are limited, as we now live. Nobody, no

religious or other philosophers have said this: unless you allow all

the senses to flower and with their flowering perceive the beauty of

the world.

Then one of the causes of desire is disorder. I am going to go

into it - we are going to go into it very carefully. Up to now it is

clear, is it, we are together in this. What is desire? What is the

cause of it, how does it arise? It doesn't arise by itself. It arises

through sensation, through contact, through seeing something,

seeing a man or a woman, seeing a dress in the window, seeing a

beautiful garden with the great hills, there is immediate sensation.

That's clear. Then what happens? It is natural, healthy to have such

sensation, such response. Then what takes place? I see a beautiful -

what would you like? - a beautiful woman, a beautiful man, a

beautiful house, a beautiful dress - I see it - a beautiful shirt, made

most delicately. I go inside and touch the material: seeing, then

contact, from that contact sensation. Right? Then - please listen to

this - then what happens? Enquire with me. We are enquiring,

please enquire. You have touched the shirt, you have the sensation,

of its quality, its colour. Up to now there has been no desire. There

has been only sensation. Right? Then what happens? Now, you are

waiting for me to tell you. Please look at it carefully - don't answer

me - please look at it for yourself. Because you see unless you

discover this with your heart and mind it is not yours, you just

repeat what somebody has said. That's what is destroying this

country. You all quote other people - the Gita, the Upanishads or

some other book. I was going to say, 'rotten book'. And you repeat,

but you never discover, it's never yours, it's somebody else's,

therefore you become secondhand human beings. Whereas if you

discover it yourself it is an extraordinary freedom that comes.

So we are asking when the senses discover a nice dress, shirt, or

a car, then what takes place? You have touched that shirt or dress,

then thought - please listen - then thought creates the image of you

in that shirt, in the car, in that dress; when thought creates that

image that is the moment desire is born. You are following all this?

You are following all this, sirs? I am not telling you, you are

discovering it. That is, desire begins when thought creates the

image. I see a beautiful violin, a Stradivarius, I want to have that,

the beauty of that sound that the violin makes, I would like to

possess it. I look at it, touch it, the sense of that old structure and I

would like to have it. That is, the moment thought enters into the

field of sensation, creates the image then desire begins. Now the

question then is - please listen to it - whether there can be a hiatus,

that is, the sensation and not let thought come and control the

sensation. That's a problem. You understand? Not the suppressing

of desire. Why has thought created the image and holds that

sensation? You understand? Is it possible to look at that shirt, touch

it, sensation and stop, not for thought to enter into it? Have you

ever tried any of this? No, I'm afraid you haven't.

When thought enters into the field of sensation - and thought is

also a sensation, which we will go into presently - when thought

takes control of sensation then desire begins. And is it possible to

only observe, contact, sensation, and nothing else? You understand

my question? If you put that question to yourself and discover that

discipline has no place in this, because the moment when you

begin to discipline that's another form of desire to achieve

something. You are following all this?

So one has to discover the beginning of desire. And see what

happens. Don't buy the shirt immediately, or the dress, but see what

happens. You can look at it, but we are so eager to get something,

to possess something, the shirt, the man or a woman or some

status, we are so eager. We have never time, quietness to look at all

this. So desire is one of the factors of our disorder. We have been

trained either to control, suppress, change desire, the object of

desire. But we have never looked at the movement, the flowering

of desire. So that's one of the causes of our disorder in life. Please

bear in mind we are not trying to control desire, that's been tried by

all the so-called saints and all the rest of it, nor indulge in desire,

but to understand it, like looking at a flower, how it grows. You

understand all this. Are you all asleep?

Then is fear one of the causes of disorder? Obviously. Fear: fear

of failure, fear of not being able to fulfil, fear of losing, fear of not

gaining. We have every kind of fear - fear of the guru. Have you

ever noticed how you crawl in front of a guru? You kind of

become, I don't know, inhuman, you are afraid, you want

something from him, so you worship him, and in the worship there

is fear. So there are multiple forms of fear. We are not taking one

particular form. We are asking what is the root of fear, if we can

discover the root of fear then the whole tree is dead. You

understand? But if I am concerned with my particular little fear of

darkness, or of my husband, or something or other, my brain is not

involved in the discover of the whole root of it. This is clear, so we

can go on.

So what is the root of fear? How does it arise? It's a very

complex problem. And every complex problem must be

approached very simply, the simpler the better. The simpler means,

I don't know how to deal with the root of fear, I don't know. Then

you begin to discover. But if you have already come to a

conclusion, the root of fear is this, this, that, then you never

discover what the root is - but if you approach fear very simply, the

trunk and the root of fear, not the branches.

So we are asking what is the cause, or the causation of fear.

Would you say time is a factor of fear - Time. That is, I am living,

I might die tomorrow, which is time. Time to go from here to your

house, that requires time. So there are only two kinds of time, time

by the sunrise and sunset, time by the watch, time by the distance

you have to cover, time, that is, physical time. Right? Is that clear?

That is, time by the watch, by the sunrise and sunset, darkness and

dawn. That's physical time. There is the other time which is

psychological, inward: I am this but I will be that. I am violent, but

I am practising non-violence, which is nonsense. I am brutal but

give me time I will get over it. So there is psychological time. You

understand this? I hope I will meet my friend tomorrow, hope

implies time. You understand all this? Are we thinking together?

There is time by the watch, time, psychological becoming,

climbing the ladder of becoming. That is, creating an ideal, and

then try to reach that ideal. You understand this? Of course. All

that implies psychological time. Right? Is this clear? I am this, but

tomorrow I will be different. I haven't reached the position of

power, but give me time I will get it.

So one of the factors of fear is time: I am living but I might die

in a week's time. Right, is this clear? So what is time? Am I

making this complex? Are you following all this? So we must ask,

what is time, not by the watch, but time that we have - I hope, I

will, which is measurement. You are following all this? You

understand? Hope implies measurement. Now time is a movement,

isn't it. Are you following all this? Does it interest you, all this?

Because we will come to a point presently when you begin to

understand that there can be an end to fear, completely, inwardly.

Begin always inwardly, but not outwardly. That there is a

possibility of being totally free from fear. And to find that out one

must begin to enquire.

So we say desire is one of the factors of disorder, fear is one of

the factors, fear is time, isn't it. Are you quite sure you understand

this because otherwise we can't go further. Time is a movement

from one point to another point, both physically and

psychologically. Right? I need time to learn a language, it may take

me a month, or two moths, or three months, to go from here to

London takes time, to drive a car I need time. So - please watch

this in yourself - we need time there so we use that time to become

something inwardly. You understand? We have moved over from

the physical fact of learning a language and I also say to myself, as

I need time there I need time also to evolve, to become, to be less

violent. Right? You understand this question? I need time to learn a

language, and also I think I need time to get over violence, to bring

about peace in the world. So that is a movement in measurement.

Right? I wonder if you understand all this.

So what is movement, which is thought. Right? You are

following all this? Thought is a movement, and thought has created

time, not to learn a language, but to become something. Right?

That is, I want to change 'what is', and to change that I need time,

as I need time to learn a language. You have understood this?

Gosh, are you all asleep?

So time - desire, time, thought, are the factors which bring

about fear. I have done this something wrong two years ago, and it

has caused pain, and I hope I will - hope - I will not do the same

thing again. You understand this? Clear? So desire, time, thought.

Now what is thought? The whole world is moving in the realm of

thought, all the technological world with all its extraordinary

complexity is brought about by thought. Right? They have built the

most extraordinary complicated machines, like the computer, like

the jet, and so on, it's all put together by thought. Right? All the

great cathedrals are put together by thought, all the temples, and all

the things that are in the temples, in the cathedrals are put together

by thought. The rituals are invented by thought. Right? The guru is

invented by thought. Right? You are a Sikh and I am not, but when

you say, 'I am a Sikh' it is thought conditioning itself as a Sikh and

operating there. So thought has become the most important factor

in our life. In our relationship thought dominates. I don't know if

you have noticed all this. Thought has created the problems of war.

Right? And thought then says, I must have peace also - which is

contradiction. You understand? So we must understand why

thought has become so extraordinarily important in the world. And

that's the only instrument we have, at least we think we have.

Right? Are we together so far? Yes sir?

Q: I understand.

K: Good luck to you!

So what is thought? What is the origin and the beginning of

thought? And why man so depends on thought, all the great

intellectuals, great scientists, great philosophers, all the books that

have been written are all the results, whether it is the Bible, the

Koran, or your Upanishads and so on, even Marx, are based on

thought. And thought - what is thought, by which we live? Now we

will explain it, but you are discovering it, I am not telling you, so

don't wait to be told, for god's sake, don't wait, then you become

worthless human beings.

So is there thought without knowledge? You understand my

question? What is knowledge? There are really several kinds of

knowledge but we will take two. Knowledge you have by going to

a school, college, university, or becoming an apprentice, and

gradually accumulating skill. If I want to be a carpenter I must

learn the grain of the wood, what kind of wood and so on, the

instrument I use, I must learn, acquire a great deal of knowledge.

Are you following all this? If I want to be a scientist I must have

tremendous knowledge. Right? Knowledge is born of experience.

Right? One scientist makes an experience, that is, discovers

something, another scientist adds to it, or detracts from it, so there

is a gradual accumulation of knowledge. Right? Now is knowledge

complete? Or is knowledge always limited? You understand my

question? Please answer yourself. Can the human thought, which is

born of knowledge, can that knowledge be total, complete about

everything? Of course not. Right? Knowledge can never be

complete about anything. So knowledge is always limited. The

master weavers of this country, they produce the most marvellous

things but they are learning, adding, learning. So knowledge is

always limited. The Gita, the Upanishads, the Bible, they are all

the knowledge of history that people have written and so on. That's

irrelevant. So knowledge, whether it is given by a saint, by a

politician, by a philosopher, is limited. So don't worship

knowledge.

So if it is limited, as it is, then knowledge always lives with

ignorance. You follow all this? So thought is born out of

knowledge. Right? That is, I experience a motor accident, and it is

recorded in the brain as painful, or whatever it is, and that memory,

that experience is stored in the brain as memory, and next time I

drive I am jolly careful. Right? That is, experience, knowledge,

from that experience, stored in the brain as memory, and from that

memory, thought. If there is no memory at all, what happens? You

follow, you are in a state of amnesia. You understand? So thought

is always limited. Right? There is no supreme thought, noble

thought, or ignoble thought, it is limited, and because it is limited

whatever it does must produce conflict in human relationship. You

understand this? Are you working as hard as the speaker is doing,

or are you just listening casually?

If you understand the very complexity of thought, the delicacy

of thought, the extraordinary capacity of thought - capacity of

thought in one direction. Look what thought has done

technologically. Have you ever looked at any marvellous

machinery, a dynamo, a piston engine, the jet? Technologically we

are progressing with lightening speed because partly we want to

kill each other. So thought has created wars, thought has created

the instruments of war, thought has also created all the

extraordinary good things of life - sanitation, health, surgery,

communication and so on. Thought is responsible for all this, but

also thought has created problems. Right?

So we are asking if thought is the only instrument we have, and

that instrument is becoming blunt and creating problems, and the

problems it has created are being solved by thought. You

understand? Therefore it creates more problems. You understand

all this? So we are asking - I don't know if you will understand this

- we are asking if there is another kind of instrument which is not

thought? You understand my question? Thought is limited, and

thought is not your thought or my thought, it is thought, it is not

individual thinking, it is thinking, whether you are rich, a great

scholar, or poor village person who doesn't know how to read a

book, how to read or write, but he still thinks.

So now we see that disorder in our life, at whatever level we

live, you may have the greatest power on earth as a politician, as a

guru, they live in disorder inwardly, and therefore whatever they

touch they bring disorder. You see that all over the country

politically. And the many factors of disorder are desire - we went

into it carefully - time, and thought. And if you exercise thought to

create order you are still creating disorder. Is this clear? I wonder if

you understand all this? Our whole life is based on discipline, like

soldiers which are disciplined day after day, month after month, we

discipline ourselves to do this and not to do that. The word

'discipline', the root of it, is to learn, not from somebody, to learn

from oneself, one's own reactions, one's own observation, one's

own activities and behaviour. But discipline never brings about

intelligence. What brings about intelligence is observation and

being free from fear - being free from. Now understanding the

nature of desire, for example, if you understand it, see its nature

and its structure, its vitality and find out for yourself the sensation

and when thought enters into it, when you become aware of that,

you are beginning to have intelligence, which is not your

intelligence or my intelligence, it is intelligence.

So is it possible after listening to this talk, both of us, is it

possible to be free of fear, which is a tremendous burden on

humanity? Now you have listened to it, are you free from it? If you

are honest you are not, why? Go on, enquire, why. Because you

have not really investigated, gone into it step by step, and said, let's

find out, put your passion, your guts, your vitality into it, not

accept it. You haven't done that, you have just listened casually,

you haven't said, look, I am afraid of my husband, my wife,

whatever it is you are afraid of. Look at it, bring it out and look at

it. But we are afraid to look at it, and so we live with it, like some

horrible disease, we live with fear. And that's causing disorder. If

you see that you are already operating from intelligence.

It is now nearly seven o'clock, shall we have time to enquire

further into what is suffering, what is love, what is compassion,

and also we ought to enquire into what is death.

Q: How can we achieve thoughtlessness?

K: How to achieve thoughtlessness - you have achieved it! You

have perfectly achieved it, you have become machines, you never

think properly, you have never gone into it. And you want to find

out how to be still further asleep, how to be really thoughtless

which is a wrong question. If you understand the nature of thought,

the intricacies, the subtleties, the beauty of thought, from that

understanding, the unfolding of a flower, nothing matters then.

You don't say, how am I to gain this or that, it is unfolding, like a

flower and you see the beauty of it. Do you see the beauty of a

flower, of the mountain, of a full moon on a leaf, the light, silver,

on a piece of rock?

So one has also to enquire, what is beauty - not in a painting or

something, beauty in our life. There are too many things to talk

about. We haven't touched sorrow and the ending of that burden,

putting away sorrow altogether, then only you have compassion. If

you suffer, if you have pain of anxiety, ambition and so on, you

don't know what love is. But you want to be ambitious, you want to

have power, position, better house, better cars, better, better, better.

Have you ever understood that a man who is ambitious has no love

in his heart. How can he? And we are all very ambitious, to

achieve nirvana, or to become the bank manager. Both the same

thing. You understand? To reach nirvana, or moksha, heaven, is the

same as becoming manager of a bank, because both are ambitious.

So to live a life of intelligence which means no ambition, but yet

be tremendously active. You people don't know anything about all

this.

So, sir, we have to talk over together the ending of sorrow, what

are the implications of death, and what is religion. Without religion

you cannot create a new structure, a new society, but what we have

as religion is utter nonsense, meaningless nonsense in our life. We

repeat some shloka, or whatever you do, that's not religion; reading

the Gita everyday until you die is not religion, or quoting some

book is not religion, or following a guru is not religion, or doing

some rituals day after day, day after day. So we have to enquire

into the depth of that word because a new culture, a new

civilization can be born only out of a really true religion, not all

this paraphernalia that goes on in the name of religion. So I don't

know when we are going to do it.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: You see how angry we get.

Q: What is the real meaning of life?

K: No, sir, please listen, sir, just listen. How angry you get, how

defensive you get, you don't even look at your repetitions, or

whatever you repeat, you don't say, why am I doing this, what is

the reason, what lies behind all this. You follow tradition and

therefore you think that is religion. You know in India somebody

calculated three hundred thousand gods. It is perhaps better than

having one god, you can choose anything you like. But god - the

worship of god, or saying, 'I believe in god', is not religion.

Religion is something entirely different. To have a religious life

means to have compassion, love, the ending of sorrow, to find right

relationship with each other, but you are not interested in all that.

Really you are not deeply, profoundly, passionately interested in

order to find out. What most people want is not to be disturbed

with their own particular pattern, way of life. And you get angry,

or violent, when you say, look, just look at what you are doing.

Have you ever noticed the totalitarian states, what they are doing:

anybody who dissents, disagrees, is sent to somewhere or other.

You do exactly the same thing. So please consider, give your

energy, your capacity to find out if there is a different way of living

on this earth.

So perhaps when we meet tomorrow...

Q: One question.

Q: I have one too.

K: He is the first!

Q: My question is I don't think it is possible for a human being

to live without desire, fear...

K: Sir, I have understood. Have it your own way, sir. You have

said it is not possible, I never said live without desire, I never said

it. I have said understand desire, look into the nature of desire,

explore, probe into this urge of desire. And you translate it as, 'to

live without desire'. I never said that.

You were going to say something, sir?

Q: Why should tradition be discouraged? Why should not the

religious books, the Gita be read, they should be read and then

meditated upon.

K: Why do you take for granted that they are all true? Why is a

book, printed, a book is always printed lines, why do you take it all

as though something terribly serious? Ask yourself, sir, why. Why

is a book, the Koran, your own particular book, or the Bible, and so

on, that gentleman's saint's books, why do you take it all to

dreadfully serious? Has it affected your life?

Q: It has affected the life of many of us.

K: Oh yes, sir, look at the catastrophe that is going on in this

country. This is so hopeless. And you have poverty, incredible

poverty in this country, anarchy, disorder, your own lives are in

disorder and you talk about some book. Those books haven't in the

least affected your lives. You don't love anybody, do you? You do?

If you loved somebody this country wouldn't be in chaos as it is,

and in the world there would be no wars if we loved people. So

your books, your rituals, have no meaning whatsoever because you

have lost the most precious thing in life, you have never probably

had it, to love without jealousy, without possession, possessing.

Love is not attachment. If we all loved, all of us under this tent, if

you all loved it would be a different India tomorrow.

Q: But last time you said...

K: Oh, please, sir, just listen. You people don't even listen, you

are all so intellectual. No, sorry, I withdraw that word. You are all

so verbal, you just use words. But to find out why your life is

empty, shallow, why you have no love, why there is no

compassion, why you are a Hindu and a Sikh and a Muslim, you

never ask these questions. Sir, meditation is to ask these questions.

Meditation is to find out the reality of these questions, the truth that

lies behind these questions. Right, sirs.

(Continued ...)

(My humble salutations to the lotus feet of Sri Jiddu Krishnamurti and

gratitude to the great philosophers and followers of him.)

Category: Jiddu Krishnamurti - The Flame of Attention - 5

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Hindu Vedic Philosophy (The Paramardha Tattwam)

Jiddu Krishnamurti - The Flame of Attention - 5

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