The First And Last Freedom
THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM
CHAPTER 1
FOREWORD BY ALDOUS HUXLEY
MAN IS AN amphibian who
lives simultaneously in two worlds - the given and the homemade, the
world of matter, life and
consciousness and the world of symbols. In our thinking we make use of
a great variety of
symbol-systems - linguistic, mathematical, pictorial, musical, ritualistic. Without
such symbol-systems we
should have no art, no science, no law, no philosophy, not so much as the
rudiments of civilization:
in other words, we should be animals.
Symbols, then, are
indispensable. But symbols - as the history of our own and every other age
makes so abundantly clear
- can also be fatal. Consider, for example, the domain of science on
the one hand, the domain
of politics and religion on the other. Thinking in terms of, and acting
in response to, one set of
symbols, we have come, in some small measure, to understand and
control the elementary
forces of nature. Thinking in terms of and acting in response to, another
set of symbols, we use
these forces as instruments of mass murder and collective suicide. In the
first case the explanatory
symbols were well chosen, carefully analysed and progressively adapted
to the emergent facts of
physical existence. in the second case symbols originally ill-chosen were
never subjected to
thoroughgoing analysis and never re-formulated so as to harmonize with the
emergent facts of human
existence. Worse still, these misleading symbols were everywhere treated
with a wholly unwarranted
respect, as though, in some mysterious way, they were more real than
the realities to which
they referred. In the contexts of religion and politics, words are not regarded
as
standing, rather
inadequately, for things and events; on the contrary, things and events are
regarded
as particular
illustrations of words. Up to the present symbols have been used realistically
only
in those fields which we
do not feel to be supremely important. In every situation involving our
deeper impulses we have
insisted on using symbols, not merely unrealistically, but idolatrously, even
insanely. The result is
that we have been able to commit, in cold blood and over long periods of time,
acts of which the brutes
are capable only for brief moments and at the frantic height of rage, desire
or fear. Because they use
and worship symbols, men can become idealists; and, being idealists,
2
CHAPTER 1. FOREWORD BY
ALDOUS HUXLEY
they can transform the
animal’s intermittent greed into the grandiose imperialisms of a Rhodes or a
J. P. Morgan; the animal’s
intermittent love of bullying into Stalinism or the Spanish Inquisition; the
animal’s intermittent
attachment to its territory into the calculated frenzies of nationalism. Happily,
they can also transform
the animal’s intermittent kindliness into the lifelong charity of an Elizabeth
Fry
or a Vincent de Paul; the
animal’s intermittent devotion to its mate and its young into that reasoned
and persistent
co-operation which, up to the present, has proved strong enough to save the
world
from the consequences of
the other, the disastrous kind of idealism. Will it go on being able to
save the world? The
question cannot be answered. All we can say is that, with the idealists of
nationalism holding the
A-bomb, the odds in favour of the idealists of co-operation and charity have
sharply declined.
Even the best cookery book
is no substitute for even the worst dinner. The fact seems sufficiently
obvious. And yet,
throughout the ages, the most profound philosophers, the most learned and acute
theologians have
constantly fallen into the error of identifying their purely verbal
constructions with
facts, or into the yet
more enormous error of imagining that symbols are somehow more real than
what they stand for. Their
word-worship did not go without protest. ”Only the spirit,” said St. Paul,
”gives life; the letter
kills.” ”And why,” asks Eckhart, ”why do you prate of God? Whatever you say
of God is untrue.” At the
other end of the world the author of one of the Mahayana sutras affirmed
that ”the truth was never
preached by the Buddha, seeing that you have to realize it within yourself”.
Such utterances were felt
to be profoundly subversive, and respectable people ignored them. The
strange idolatrous
over-estimation of words and emblems continued unchecked. Religions declined;
but the old habit of
formulating creeds and imposing belief in dogmas persisted even among the
atheists.
In recent years logicians
and semanticists have carried out a very thorough analysis of the symbols,
in terms of which men do
their thinking. Linguistics has become a science, and one may even study
a subject to which the
late Benjamin Whorf gave the name of meta-linguistics. All this is greatly
to the good; but it is not
enough. Logic and semantics, linguistics and meta-linguistics - these are
purely intellectual
disciplines. They analyse the various ways, correct and incorrect, meaningful
and meaningless, in which
words can be related to things, processes and events. But they offer
no guidance, in regard to
the much more fundamental problem of the relationship of man in his
psychophysical totality,
on the one hand, and his two worlds, of data and of symbols, on the other.
In every region and at
every period of history, the problem has been repeatedly solved by individual
men and women. Even when
they spoke or wrote, these individuals created no systems - for they
knew that every system is
a standing temptation to take symbols too seriously, to pay more attention
to words than to the
realities for which the words are supposed to stand. Their aim was never to
offer ready-made
explanations and panaceas; it was to induce people to diagnose and cure their
own ills, to get them to
go to the place where man’s problem and its solution present themselves
directly to experience.
In this volume of
selections from the writings and recorded talks of Krishnamurti, the reader
will find
a clear contemporary
statement of the fundamental human problem, together with an invitation to
solve it in the only way
in which it can be solved - for and by himself. The collective solutions, to
which so many so
desperately pin their faith, are never adequate. ”To understand the misery and
confusion that exist
within ourselves, and so in the world, we must first find clarity within
ourselves,
and that clarity comes
about through right thinking. This clarity is not to be organized, for it
cannot
The First And Last Freedom
3 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 1. FOREWORD BY
ALDOUS HUXLEY
be exchanged with another.
Organized group thought is merely repetitive. Clarity is not the result of
verbal assertion, but of
intense self-awareness and right thinking. Right thinking is not the outcome
of or mere cultivation of
the intellect, nor is it conformity to pattern, however worthy and noble. Right
thinking comes with self-knowledge.
Without understanding yourself you have no basis for thought;
without self-knowledge,
what you think is not true.”
This fundamental theme is
developed by Krishnamurti in passage after passage. ‘’There is hope in
men, not in society, not
in systems, organized religious systems, but in you and in me.” Organized
religions, with their
mediators, their sacred books, their dogmas, their hierarchies and rituals,
offer
only a false solution to
the basic problem. ”When you quote the Bhagavad Gita, or the Bible, or some
Chinese Sacred Book,
surely you are merely repeating, are you not? And what you are repeating
is not the truth. It is a
lie, for truth cannot be repeated.” A lie can be extended, propounded and
repeated, but not truth;
and when you repeat truth, it ceases to be truth, and therefore sacred books
are unimportant. It is
through self-knowledge, not through belief in somebody else’s symbols, that a
man comes to the eternal
reality, in which his being is grounded. Belief in the complete adequacy
and superlative value of
any given symbol system leads not to liberation, but to history, to more of
the same old disasters. ”Belief
inevitably separates. If you have a belief, or when you seek security
in your particular belief,
you become separated from those who seek security in some other form
of belief. All organized
beliefs are based on separation, though they may preach brotherhood.”
The man who has
successfully solved the problem of his relations with the two worlds of data
and
symbols, is a man who has
no beliefs. With regard to the problems of practical life he entertains
a series of working
hypotheses, which serve his purposes, but are taken no more seriously than
any other kind of tool or
instrument. With regard to his fellow beings and to the reality in which
they are grounded, he has
the direct experiences of love and insight. It is to protect himself from
beliefs that Krishnamurti
has ”not read any sacred literature, neither the Bhagavad Gita nor the
Upanishads”. The rest of
us do not even read sacred literature; we read our favourite newspapers,
magazines and detective
stories. This means that we approach the crisis of our times, not with love
and insight, but ”with
formulas, with systems” - and pretty poor formulas and systems at that. But
”men of good will should
not have formulas; for formulas lead, inevitably, only to ”blind thinking”.
Addiction to formulas is
almost universal. Inevitably so; for ”our system of upbringing is based upon
what to think, not on how
to think”. We are brought up as believing and practising members of some
organization - the
Communist or the Christian, the Moslem, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Freudian.
Consequently ”you respond
to the challenge, which is always new, according to an old pattern; and
therefore your response
has no corresponding validity, newness, freshness. If you respond as a
Catholic or a Communist,
you are responding - are you not? - according to a patterned thought.
Therefore your response
has no significance. And has not the Hindu, the Mussulman, the Buddhist,
the Christian created this
problem? As the new religion is the worship of the State, so the old religion
was the worship of an
idea.” If you respond to a challenge according to the old conditioning, your
response will not enable
you to understand the new challenge. Therefore what ”one has to do,
in order to meet the new
challenge, is to strip oneself completely, denude oneself entirely of the
background and meet the
challenge anew”. In other words symbols should never be raised to the
rank of dogmas, nor should
any system be regarded as more than a provisional convenience. Belief
in formulas and action in
accordance with these beliefs cannot bring us to a solution of our problem.
”It is only through
creative understanding of ourselves that there can be a creative world, a happy
world, a world in which
ideas do not exist.” A world in which ideas do not exist would be a happy
world, because it would be
a world without the powerful conditioning forces which compel men to
undertake inappropriate
action, a world without the hallowed dogmas in terms of which the worst
The First And Last Freedom
4 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 1. FOREWORD BY
ALDOUS HUXLEY
crimes are justified, the
greatest follies elaborately rationalized.
An education that teaches
us not how but what to think is an education that calls for a governing
class of pastors and
masters. But ”the very idea of leading somebody is antisocial and
anti-spiritual”.
To the man who exercises
it, leadership brings gratification of the craving for power; to those who
are led, it brings the
gratification of the desire for certainty and security. The guru provides a
kind
of dope. But, it may be
asked, ”What are you doing? Are you not acting as our guru?” ”Surely,”
Krishnamurti answers, ”I
am not acting as your guru, because, first of all, I am not giving you any
gratification. I am not
telling you what you should do from moment to moment, or from day to day,
but I am just pointing out
something to you; you can take it or leave it, depending on you, not on me.
I do not demand a thing
from you, neither your worship, nor your flattery, nor your insults, nor your
gods. I say,” This is a
fact; take it or leave it. And most of you will leave it, for the obvious
reason that
you do not find
gratification in it.”
What is it precisely that
Krishnamurti offers? What is it that we can take if we wish, but in all
probability shall prefer
to leave? It is not, as we have seen, a system of belief, a catalogue of
dogmas, a set of
ready-made notions and ideals. It is not leadership, not mediation, not
spiritual
direction, not even
example. It is not ritual, not a church, not a code, not uplift or any form of
inspirational twaddle.
Is it, perhaps,
self-discipline? No; for self-discipline is not, as a matter of brute fact, the
way in
which our problem can be
solved. In order to find the solution, the mind must open itself to reality,
must confront the
givenness of the outer and inner worlds without preconceptions or restrictions.
(God’s service is perfect
freedom. Conversely, perfect freedom is the service of God.) In becoming
disciplined, the mind
undergoes no radical change; it is the old self, but ”tethered, held in control”.
Self-discipline joins the
list of things which Krishnamurti does not offer. Can it be, then, that what
he offers is prayer? Again,
the reply is in the negative. ”Prayer may bring you the answer you seek;
but that answer may come
from your unconscious, or from the general reservoir, the storehouse of
all your demands. The
answer is not the still voice of God.” Consider, Krishnamurti goes on, ”what
happens when you pray. By
constant repetition of certain phrases, and by controlling your thoughts,
the mind becomes quiet,
doesn’t it? At least, the conscious mind becomes quiet. You kneel as the
Christians do, or you sit
as the Hindus do, and you repeat and repeat, and through that repetition
the mind becomes quiet. In
that quietness there is the intimation of something. That intimation of
something, for which you
have prayed, may be from the unconscious, or it may be the response of
your memories. But,
surely, it is not the voice of reality; for the voice of reality must come to
you;
it cannot be appealed to,
you cannot pray to it. You cannot entice it into your little cage by doing
puja, bhajan and all the
rest of it, by offering it flowers, by placating it, by suppressing yourself or
emulating others. Once you
have learned the trick of quietening the mind, through the repetition of
words, and of receiving
hints in that quietness, the danger is - unless you are fully alert as to
whence
those hints come - that
you will be caught, and then prayer becomes a substitute for the search for
Truth. That which you ask
for you get; but it is not the truth. If you want, and if you petition, you
will
receive, but you will pay
for it in the end.”
From prayer we pass to
yoga, and yoga, we find, is another of the things which Krishnamurti does
not offer. For yoga is
concentration, and concentration is exclusion. ”You build a wall of resistance
by concentration on a
thought which you have chosen, and you try to ward off all the others.” What
The First And Last Freedom
5 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 1. FOREWORD BY
ALDOUS HUXLEY
is commonly called
meditation is merely ”the cultivation of resistance, of exclusive concentration
on
an idea of our choice”. But
what makes you choose? ”What makes you say this is good, true, noble,
and the rest is not? Obviously
the choice is based on pleasure, reward or achievement; or it is
merely a reaction of one’s
conditioning or tradition. Why do you choose at all? Why not examine
every thought? When you
are interested in the many, why choose one? Why not examine every
interest? Instead of
creating resistance, why not go into each interest as it arises, and not merely
concentrate on one idea,
one interest? After all, you are made up of many interests, you have many
masks, consciously and
unconsciously. Why choose one and discard all the others, in combating
which you spend all your
energies, thereby creating resistance, conflict and friction. Whereas if
you consider every thought
as it arises - every thought, not just a few thoughts - then there is no
exclusion. But it is an
arduous thing to examine every thought. Because, as you are looking at one
thought, another slips in.
But if you are aware without domination or justification, you will see that,
by merely looking at that
thought, no other thought intrudes. It is only when you condemn, compare,
approximate, that other
thoughts enter in.”
”Judge not that ye be not
judged.” The gospel precept applies to our dealings with ourselves no
less than to our dealings
with others. Where there is judgement, where there is comparison and
condemnation, openness of
mind is absent; there can be no freedom from the tyranny of symbols
and systems, no escape
from the past and the environment. Introspection with a predetermined
purpose, self-examination
within the framework of some traditional code, some set of hallowed
postulates - these do not,
these cannot help us. There is a transcendent spontaneity of life, a
‘creative Reality’, as
Krishnamurti calls it, which reveals itself as immanent only when the perceiver’s
mind is in a state of ‘alert
passivity’, of ‘choiceless awareness’. Judgement and comparison commit
us irrevocably to duality.
Only choiceless awareness can lead to non-duality, to the reconciliation of
opposites in a total
understanding and a total love. Ama
et fac quod vis. If you love, you may do
what you will. But if you
start by doing what you will, or by doing what you don’t will in obedience
to some traditional system
or notions, ideals and prohibitions, you will never love. The liberating
process must begin with
the choiceless awareness of what you will and of your reactions to the
symbol-system which tells
you that you ought, or ought not, to will it. Through this choiceless
awareness, as it
penetrates the successive layers of the ego and its associated subconscious,
will
come love and
understanding, but of another order than that with which we are ordinarily
familiar.
This choiceless awareness
- at every moment and in all the circumstances of life - is the only effective
meditation. All other
forms of yoga lead either to the blind thinking which results from
self-discipline,
or to some kind of
self-induced rapture, some form of false samadhi. The true liberation is ”an
inner
freedom of creative
Reality”. This ”is not a gift; it is to be discovered and experienced. It is
not an
acquisition to be gathered
to yourself to glorify yourself. It is a state of being, as silence, in which
there is no becoming, in
which there is completeness. This creativeness may not necessarily seek
expression; it is not a
talent that demands outward manifestation. You need not be a great artist or
have an audience; if you
seek these, you will miss the inward Reality. It is neither a gift, nor is it
the outcome of talent; it
is to be found, this imperishable treasure, where thought frees itself from
lust, ill will and
ignorance, where thought frees itself from worldliness and personal craving to
be.
It is to be experienced
through right thinking and meditation.” Choiceless self-awareness will bring
us to the creative Reality
which underlies all our destructive make-believes, to the tranquil wisdom
which is always there, in
spite of ignorance, in spite of the knowledge which is merely ignorance in
another form. Knowledge is
an affair of symbols and is, all too often, a hindrance to wisdom, to the
uncovering of the self
from moment to moment. A mind that has come to the stillness of wisdom
”shall know being, shall
know what it is to love. Love is neither personal nor impersonal. Love is
The First And Last Freedom
6 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 1. FOREWORD BY
ALDOUS HUXLEY
love, not to be defined or
described by the mind as exclusive or inclusive. Love is its own eternity; it
is the real, the supreme,
the immeasurable.”
ALDOUS HUXLEY
The First And Last Freedom
7 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
TO COMMUNICATE with one
another, even if we know each other very well, is extremely difficult.
I may use words that may
have to you a significance different from mine. Understanding comes
when we, you and I, meet
on the same level at the same time. That happens only when there is
real affection between
people, between husband and wife, between intimate fiends. That is real
communion. Instantaneous
understanding comes when we meet on the same level at the same
time.
It is very difficult to
commune with one another easily, effectively and with definitive action. I am
using words which are
simple, which are not technical, because I do not think that any technical
type of expression is
going to help us solve our difficult problems; so I am not going to use any
technical terms, either of
psychology or of science. I have not read any books on psychology or any
religious books,
fortunately. I would like to convey, by the very simple words which we use in
our
daily life, a deeper
significance; but that is very difficult if you do not know how to listen.
There is an art of
listening. To be able really to listen, one should abandon or put aside all
prejudices,
preformulations and daily
activities. When you are in a receptive state of mind, things can be easily
understood; you are
listening when your real attention is given to something. But unfortunately
most
of us listen through a
screen of resistance. We are screened with prejudices, whether religious or
spiritual, psychological
or scientific; or with our daily worries, desires and fears. And with these for
a
screen, we listen.
Therefore, we listen really to our own noise, to our own sound, not to what is
being
said. It is extremely
difficult to put aside our training, our prejudices, our inclination, our
resistance,
and, reaching beyond the
verbal expression, to listen so that we understand instantaneously. That
is going to be one of our
difficulties.
If during this discourse,
anything is said which is opposed to your way of thinking and belief just
listen; do not resist. You
may be right, and I may be wrong; but by listening and considering together
8
CHAPTER 2. CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
we are going to find out what
is the truth. Truth cannot be given to you by somebody. You have to
discover it; and to
discover, there must be a state of mind in which there is direct perception. There
is no direct perception
when there is a resistance, a safeguard, a protection. Understanding comes
through being aware of
what is. To know exactly what is, the real, the actual, without interpreting
it, without condemning or
justifying it, is, surely, the beginning of wisdom. It is only when we begin
to interpret, to translate
according to our conditioning, according to our prejudice, that we miss the
truth. After all, it is
like research. To know what something is, what it is exactly, requires research
-
you cannot translate it
according to your moods. Similarly, if we can look, observe, listen, be aware
of what is, exactly, then
the problem is solved. And that is what we are going to do in all these
discourses. I am going to
point out to you what is, and not translate it according to my fancy; nor
should you translate it or
interpret it according to your background or training.
Is it not possible, then,
to be aware of everything as it is? Starting from there, surely, there can be
an
understanding. To
acknowledge, to be aware of to get at that which is, puts an end to struggle. If
I
know that I am a liar, and
it is a fact which I recognize, then the struggle is over. To acknowledge, to
be aware of what one is,
is already the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of understanding, which
releases you from time. To
bring in the quality of time - time, not in the chronological sense, but
as the medium, as the
psychological process, the process of the mind - is destructive, and creates
confusion. So, we can have
understanding of what is when we recognize it without condemnation,
without justification,
without identification. To know that one is in a certain condition, in a
certain
state, is already a
process of liberation; but a man who is not aware of his condition, of his
struggle,
tries to be something
other than he is, which brings about habit. So, then, let us keep in mind that
we
want to examine what is,
to observe and be aware of exactly what is the actual, without giving it any
slant, without giving it
an interpretation. It needs an extraordinarily astute mind, an extraordinarily
pliable heart, to be aware
of and to follow what is; because what is is constantly moving, constantly
undergoing a
transformation, and if the mind is tethered to belief, to knowledge, it ceases
to pursue,
it ceases to follow the
swift movement of what is. What is is not static, surely - it is constantly
moving,
as you will see if you
observe it very closely. To follow it, you need a very swift mind and a pliable
heart - which are denied
when the mind is static, fixed in a belief, in a prejudice, in an
identification;
and a mind and heart that
are dry cannot follow easily, swiftly, that which is.
One is aware, I think,
without too much discussion, too much verbal expression, that there is
individual as well as
collective chaos, confusion and misery. It is not only in India, but right
throughout
the world; in China,
America, England, Germany, all over the world, there is confusion, mounting
sorrow. It is not only
national, it is not particularly here, it is all over the world. There is
extraordinarily
acute suffering, and it is
not individual only but collective. So it is a world catastrophe, and to limit
it
merely to a geographical
area, a coloured section of the map, is absurd; because then we shall not
understand the full
significance of this worldwide as well as individual suffering. Being aware of
this
confusion, what is our
response today? How do we react?
There is suffering,
political, social, religious; our whole psychological being is confused, and
all the
leaders, political and
religious, have failed us; all the books have lost their significance. You may
go
to the Bhagavad Gita or
the Bible or the latest treatise on politics or psychology, and you will find
that they have lost that
ring, that quality of truth; they have become mere words. You yourself who
are the repeater of those
words, are confused and uncertain, and mere repetition of words conveys
nothing. Therefore the
words and the books have lost their value; that is, if you quote the Bible, or
Marx, or the Bhagavad
Gita, as you who quote it are yourself uncertain, confused, your repetition
The First And Last Freedom
9 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 2. CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
becomes a lie; because
what is written there becomes mere propaganda, and propaganda is not
truth. So when you repeat,
you have ceased to understand your own state of being. You are merely
covering with words of
authority your own confusion. But what we are trying to do is to understand
this confusion and not
cover it up with quotations; so what is your response to it? How do you
respond to this
extraordinary chaos, this confusion, this uncertainty of existence? Be aware of
it, as
I discuss it: follow, not
my words, but the thought which is active in you. Most of us are accustomed
to be spectators and not
to partake in the game. We read books but we never write books. It has
become our tradition, our
national and universal habit, to be the spectators, to look on at a football
game, to watch the public
politicians and orators. We are merely the outsiders, looking on, and we
have lost the creative
capacity. Therefore we want to absorb and partake.
But if you are merely
observing, if you are merely spectators, you will lose entirely the
significance
of this discourse, because
this is not a lecture which you are to listen to from force of habit. I am
not going to give you
information which you can pick up in an encyclopaedia. What we are trying
to do is to follow each
other’s thoughts, to pursue as far as we can, as profoundly as we can, the
intimations, the responses
of our own feelings. So please find out what your response is to this
cause, to this suffering;
not what somebody else’s words are, but how you yourself respond. Your
response is one of
indifference if you benefit by the suffering, by the chaos, if you derive
profit from it,
either economic, social,
political or psychological. Therefore you do not mind if this chaos continues.
Surely, the more trouble
there is in the world, the more chaos, the more one seeks security. Haven’t
you noticed it? When there
is confusion in the world, psychologically and in every way, you enclose
yourself in some kind of
security, either that of a bank account or that of an ideology; or else you
turn to prayer, you go to
the temple - which is really escaping from what is happening in the world.
More and more sects are
being formed, more and more ‘isms’ are springing up all over the world.
Because the more confusion
there is, the more you want a leader, somebody who will guide you out
of this mess, so you turn
to the religious books, or to one of the latest teachers; or else you act and
respond according to a
system which appears to solve the problem, a system either of the left or of
the right. That is exactly
what is happening.
The moment you are aware
of confusion, of exactly what is, you try to escape from it. Those sects
which offer you a system
for the solution of suffering, economic, social or religious, are the worst;
because then system
becomes important and not man - whether it be a religious system, or a system
of the left or of the
right. System becomes important, the philosophy, the idea, becomes important,
and not man; and for the
sake of the idea, of the ideology, you are willing to sacrifice all mankind,
which is exactly what is
happening in the world. This is not merely my interpretation; if you observe,
you will find that is
exactly what is happening. The system has become important. Therefore, as the
system has become
important, men, you and I, lose significance; and the controllers of the
system,
whether religious or
social, whether of the left or of the right, assume authority, assume power,
and
therefore sacrifice you,
the individual. That is exactly what is happening.
Now what is the cause of
this confusion, this misery? How did this misery come about, this suffering,
not only inwardly but
outwardly, this fear and expectation of war, the third world war that is
breaking
out? What is the cause of
it? Surely it indicates the collapse of all moral, spiritual values, and the
glorification of all
sensual values, of the value of things made by the hand or by the mind. What
happens when we have no
other values except the value of the things of the senses, the value of
the products of the mind,
of the hand or of the machine? The more significance we give to the
sensual value of things,
the greater the confusion, is it not? Again, this is not my theory. You do not
The First And Last Freedom
10 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 2. CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
have to quote books to
find out that your values, your riches, your economic and social existence
are based on things made
by the hand or by the mind. So we live and function and have our being
steeped in sensual values,
which means that things, the things of the mind, the things of the hand
and of the machine, have
become important; and when things become important, belief becomes
predominantly significant
- which is exactly what is happening in the world, is it not?
Thus, giving more and more
significance to the values of the senses brings about confusion; and,
being in confusion, we try
to escape from it through various forms, whether religious, economic or
social, or through
ambition, through power, through the search for reality. But the real is near,
you
do not have to seek it;
and a man who seeks truth will never find it. Truth is in what is - and that
is the beauty of it. But
the moment you conceive it, the moment you seek it, you begin to struggle;
and a man who struggles
cannot understand. That is why we have to be still, observant, passively
aware. We see that our
living, our action, is always within the field of destruction, within the field
of
sorrow; like a wave,
confusion and chaos always overtake us. There is no interval in the confusion
of existence.
Whatever we do at present
seems to lead to chaos, seems to lead to sorrow and unhappiness.
Look at your own life and
you will see that our living is always on the border of sorrow. Our work,
our social activity, our
politics, the various gatherings of nations to stop war, all produce further
war.
Destruction follows in the
wake of living; whatever we do leads to death. That is what is actually
taking place. Can we stop
this misery at once, and not go on always being caught by the wave of
confusion and sorrow? That
is, great teachers, whether the Buddha or the Christ, have come; they
have accepted faith,
making themselves, perhaps, free from confusion and sorrow. But they have
never prevented sorrow,
they have never stopped confusion. Confusion goes on, sorrow goes on. If
you, seeing this social
and economic confusion, this chaos, this misery, withdraw into what is called
the religious life and
abandon the world, you may feel that you are joining these great teachers; but
the world goes on with its
chaos, its misery and destruction, the everlasting suffering of its rich and
poor. So, our problem,
yours and mine, is whether we can step out of this misery instantaneously.
If, living in the world,
you refuse to be a part of it, you will help others out of this chaos - not in
the
future, not tomorrow, but
now. Surely that is our problem. War is probably coming, more destructive,
more appalling in its
form. Surely we cannot prevent it, because the issues are much too strong
and too close. But you and
I can perceive the confusion and misery immediately, can we not? We
must perceive them, and
then we shall be in a position to awaken the same understanding of truth
in another. In other
words, can you be instantaneously free? - because that is the only way out of
this misery. Perception
can take place only in the present; but if you say, ”I will do it tomorrow the
wave of confusion
overtakes you, and you are then always involved in confusion.
Now is it possible to come
to that state when you yourself perceive the truth instantaneously and
therefore put an end to
confusion? I say that it is, and that it is the only possible way. I say it can
be done and must be done,
not based on supposition or belief. To bring about this extraordinary
revolution - which is not
the revolution to get rid of the capitalists and install another group - to
bring about this wonderful
transformation, which is the only true revolution, is the problem. What
is generally called
revolution is merely the modification or the continuance of the right according
to the ideas of the left. The
left, after all, is the continuation of the right in a modified form. If
the right is based on
sensual values, the left is but a continuance of the same sensual values,
different only in degree
or expression. Therefore true revolution can take place only when you, the
individual, become aware
in your relationship to another. Surely what you are in your relationship
The First And Last Freedom
11 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 2. CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
to another, to your wife,
your child, your boss, your neighbour, is society. Society by itself is
nonexistent.
Society is what you and I,
in our relationship, have created; it is the outward projection
of all our own inward
psychological states. So if you and I do not understand ourselves, merely
transforming the outer,
which is the projection of the inner, has no significance whatsoever; that is
there can be no
significant alteration or modification in society so long as I do not
understand myself
in relationship to you.
Being confused in my relationship, I create a society which is the replica, the
outward expression of what
I am. This is an obvious fact, which we can discuss. We can discuss
whether society, the
outward expression, has produced me, or whether I have produced society.
Is it not, therefore, an
obvious fact that what I am in my relationship to another creates society and
that, without radically
transforming myself, there can be no transformation of the essential function
of society? When we look
to a system for the transformation of society, we are merely evading
the question, because a
system cannot transform man; man always transforms the system, which
history shows. Until I, in
my relationship to you, understand myself I am the cause of chaos, misery,
destruction, fear,
brutality. Understanding myself is not a matter of time; I can understand
myself
at this very moment. If I
say, ”I shall understand myself to-morrow”, I am bringing in chaos and
misery, my action is
destructive. The moment I say that I ”shall” understand, I bring in the time
element and so am already
caught up in the wave of confusion and destruction. Understanding is
now, not tomorrow.
To-morrow is for the lazy mind, the sluggish mind, the mind that is not
interested.
When you are interested in
something, you do it instantaneously, there is immediate understanding,
immediate transformation.
If you do not change now, you will never change, because the change
that takes place tomorrow
is merely a modification, it is not transformation. Transformation can only
take place immediately;
the revolution is now, not tomorrow.
When that happens, you are
completely without a problem, for then the self is not worried about
itself; then you are
beyond the wave of destruction.
The First And Last Freedom
12 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 2 ’WHAT ARE WE
SEEKING?’
WHAT IS IT THAT most of us
are seeking? What is it that each one of us wants? Especially in this
restless world, where
everybody is trying to find some kind of peace, some kind of happiness, a
refuge, surely it is
important to find out, isn’t it?, what it is that we are trying to seek, what
it is that
we are trying to discover.
Probably most of us are seeking some kind of happiness, some kind of
peace; in a world that is
ridden with turmoil, wars, contention, strife, we want a refuge where there
can be some peace. I think
that is what most of us want. So we pursue, go from one leader to
another, from one
religious organization to another, from one teacher to another.
Now, is it that we are
seeking happiness or is it that we are seeking gratification of some kind from
which we hope to derive
happiness? There is a difference between happiness and gratification.
Can you seek happiness?
Perhaps you can find gratification but surely you cannot find happiness.
Happiness is derivative;
it is a by-product of something else. So, before we give our minds and
hearts to something which
demands a great deal of earnestness, attention, thought, care, we must
find out, must we not?, what
it is that we are seeking; whether it is happiness, or gratification. I
am afraid most of us are
seeking gratification. We want to be gratified, we want to find a sense of
fullness at the end of our
search.
After all, if one is
seeking peace one can find it very easily. One can devote oneself blindly to
some
kind of cause, to an idea,
and take shelter there. Surely that does not solve the problem. Mere
isolation in an enclosing
idea is not a release from conflict. So we must find, must we not?, what
it is, inwardly, as well
as outwardly, that each one of us wants. If we are clear on that matter, then
we don’t have to go
anywhere, to any teacher, to any church, to any organization. Therefore our
difficulty is, to be clear
in ourselves regarding our intention, is it not? Can we be clear? And does
that clarity come through
searching, through trying to find out what others say, from the highest
teacher to the ordinary
preacher in a church round the corner? Have you got to go to somebody
13
CHAPTER 3. CHAPTER 2 ’WHAT
ARE WE SEEKING?’
to find out? Yet that is
what we are doing, is it not? We read innumerable books, we attend many
meetings and discuss, we
join various organizations - trying thereby to find a remedy to the conflict,
to the miseries in our
lives. Or, if we don’t do all that, we think we have found; that is we say that
a
particular organization, a
particular teacher, a particular book satisfies us; we have found everything
we want in that; and we
remain in that, crystallized and enclosed.
Do we not seek, through
all this confusion, something permanent, something lasting, something
which we call real, God,
truth, what you like - the name doesn’t matter, the word is not the thing,
surely. So don’t let us be
caught in words. Leave that to the professional lecturers. There is a search
for something permanent,
is there not?,in most of us - something we can cling to, something which
will give us assurance, a
hope, a lasting enthusiasm, a lasting certainty, because in ourselves we
are so uncertain. We do
not know ourselves. We know a lot about facts, what the books have said;
but we do not know for
ourselves, we do not have a direct experience.
And what is it that we
call permanent? What is it that we are seeking, which will, or which we hope
will
give us permanency? Are we
not seeking lasting happiness, lasting gratification, lasting certainty?
We want something that
will endure everlastingly, which will gratify us. If we strip ourselves of all
the words and phrases, and
actually look at it, this is what we want. We want permanent pleasure,
permanent gratification -
which we call truth, God or what you will.
Very well, we want
pleasure. Perhaps that may be putting it very crudely, but that is actually
what we
want - knowledge that will
give us pleasure, experience that will give us pleasure, a gratification that
will not wither away by
tomorrow. And we have experimented with various gratifications, and they
have all faded away; and
we hope now to find permanent gratification in reality, in God. Surely, that
is what we are all seeking
- the clever ones and the stupid ones, the theorist and the factual person
who is striving after
something. And is there permanent gratification? Is there something which will
endure?
Now, if you seek permanent
gratification, calling it God, or truth, or what you will - the name does
not matter - surely you
must understand, must you not?, the thing you are seeking. When you say, ”I
am seeking permanent
happiness” - God, or truth, or what you like - must you not also understand
the thing that is
searching, the searcher, the seeker? Because there may be no such thing as
permanent security,
permanent happiness. Truth may be something entirely different; and I think it
is utterly different from
what you can see, conceive, formulate. Therefore, before we seek something
permanent, is it not
obviously necessary to understand the seeker? Is the seeker different from the
thing he seeks? When you
say, ‘’I am seeking happiness”, is the seeker different from the object of
his search? Is the thinker
different from the thought? Are they not a joint phenomenon, rather than
separate processes?
Therefore it is essential, is it not?, to understand the seeker, before you try
to
find out what it is he is
seeking.
So we have to come to the
point when we ask ourselves, really earnestly and profoundly, if peace,
happiness, reality, God,
or what you will, can be given to us by someone else. Can this incessant
search, this longing, give
us that extraordinary sense of reality, that creative being, which comes
when we really understand
ourselves? Does self-knowledge come through search, through following
someone else, through
belonging to any particular organization, through reading books, and so on?
After all, that is the
main issue, is it not?, that so long as I do not understand myself, I have no
basis for thought, and all
my search will be in vain. I can escape into illusions, I can run away from
The First And Last Freedom
14 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 3. CHAPTER 2 ’WHAT
ARE WE SEEKING?’
contention, strife,
struggle; I can worship another; I can look for my salvation through somebody
else. But so long as I am
ignorant of myself, so long as I am unaware of the total process of myself
I have no basis for
thought, for affection, for action.
But that is the last thing
we want: to know ourselves. Surely that is the only foundation on which we
can build. But, before we
can build, before we can transform, before we can condemn or destroy,
we must know that which we
are. To go out seeking, changing teachers, gurus, practicing yoga,
breathing, performing
rituals, following Masters and all the rest of it, is utterly useless, is it
not? It
has no meaning, even
though the very people whom we follow may say: ”Study yourself”, because
what we are, the world is.
If we are petty, jealous, vain, greedy - that is what we create about us,
that is the society in
which we live.
It seems to me that before
we set out on a journey to find reality, to find God, before we can act,
before we can have any
relationship with another, which is society, it is essential that we begin to
understand ourselves
first. I consider the earnest person to be one who is completely concerned
with this, first, and not
with how to arrive at a particular goal, because, if you and I do not
understand
ourselves, how can we, in
action, bring about a transformation in society, in relationship, in anything
that we do? And it does
not mean, obviously, that self-knowledge is opposed to, or isolated from,
relationship. It does not
mean, obviously, emphasis on the individual, the me, as opposed to the
mass, as opposed to
another.
Now without knowing
yourself, without knowing your own way of thinking and why you think certain
things, without knowing
the background of your conditioning and why you have certain beliefs about
art and religion, about
your country and your neighbour and about yourself how can you think truly
about anything? Without
knowing your background, without knowing the substance of your thought
and whence it comes -
surely your search is utterly futile, your action has no meaning, has it?
Whether you are an
American or a Hindu or whatever your religion is has no meaning either.
Before we can find out
what the end purpose of life is, what it all means - wars, national
antagonisms,
conflicts, the whole mess
- we must begin with ourselves, must we not? It sounds so simple, but it is
extremely difficult. To
follow oneself to see how one’s thought operates, one has to be extraordinarily
alert, so that as one
begins to be more and more alert to the intricacies of one’s own thinking and
responses and feelings,
one begins to have a greater awareness, not only of oneself but of another
with whom one is in
relationship. To know oneself is to study oneself in action, which is
relationship.
The difficulty is that we
are so impatient; we want to get on, we want to reach an end, and so we have
neither the time nor the
occasion to give ourselves the opportunity to study, to observe. Alternatively
we have committed
ourselves to various activities - to earning a livelihood, to rearing children
- or
have taken on certain
responsibilities of various organizations; we have so committed ourselves in
different ways that we
have hardly any time for self-reflection, to observe, to study. So really the
responsibility of the
reaction depends on oneself not on another. The pursuit, all the world over, of
gurus and their systems,
reading the latest book on this and that, and so on, seems to me so utterly
empty, so utterly futile,
for you may wander all over the earth but you have to come back to yourself.
And, as most of us are
totally unaware of ourselves, it is extremely difficult to begin to see clearly
the process of our
thinking and feeling and acting.
The more you know yourself
the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end - you don’t come
to an achievement, you don’t
come to a conclusion. It is an endless river. As one studies it, as
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15 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 3. CHAPTER 2 ’WHAT
ARE WE SEEKING?’
one goes into it more and
more, one finds peace. Only when the mind is tranquil - through selfknowledge
and not through imposed
self-discipline - only then, in that tranquillity, in that silence,
can reality come into
being. It is only then that there can be bliss, that there can be creative
action.
And it seems to me that
without this understanding, without this experience, merely to read books, to
attend talks, to do
propaganda, is so infantile - just an activity without much meaning; whereas if
one
is able to understand
oneself, and thereby bring about that creative happiness, that experiencing of
something that is not of
the mind, then perhaps there can be a transformation in the immediate
relationship about us and
so in the world in which we live.
The First And Last Freedom
16 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 3 ’INDIVIDUAL AND
SOCIETY’
THE PROBLEM THAT confronts
most of us is whether the individual is merely the instrument of
society or the end of
society. Are you and I as individuals to be used, directed, educated,
controlled,
shaped to a certain
pattern by society and government; or does society, the State, exist for the
individual? Is the
individual the end of society; or is he merely a puppet to be taught,
exploited,
butchered as an instrument
of war? That is the problem that is confronting most of us. That is the
problem of the world;
whether the individual is a mere instrument of society, a plaything of
influences
to be moulded; or whether
society exists for the individual.
How are you going to find
this out? It is a serious problem, isn’t it? If the individual is merely an
instrument of society, then
society is much more important than the individual. If that is true, then
we must give up
individuality and work for society; our whole educational system must be
entirely
revolutionized and the
individual turned into an instrument to be used and destroyed, liquidated, got
rid of but if society
exists for the individual, then the function of society is not to make him
conform
to any pattern but to give
him the feel, the urge of freedom. So we have to find out which is false.
How would you inquire into
this problem? It is a vital problem, isn’t it? It is not dependent on any
ideology, either of the
left or of the right; and if it is dependent on an ideology, then it is merely
a
matter of opinion. Ideas
always breed enmity, confusion, conflict. If you depend on books of the left
or of the right or on
sacred books, then you depend on mere opinion, whether of Buddha, of Christ,
of capitalism, communism
or what you will. They are ideas, not truth. A fact can never be denied.
Opinion about fact can be
denied. If we can discover what the truth of the matter is, we shall be able
to act independently of
opinion. Is it not, therefore, necessary to discard what others have said?
The opinion of the leftist
or other leaders is the outcome of their conditioning, so if you depend for
your discovery on what is
found in books, you are merely bound by opinion. It is not a matter of
knowledge.
17
CHAPTER 4. CHAPTER 3 ’INDIVIDUAL
AND SOCIETY’
How is one to discover the
truth of this? On that we will act. To find the truth of this, there must be
freedom from all
propaganda, which means you are capable of looking at the problem independently
of opinion. The whole task
of education is to awaken the individual. To see the truth of this, you will
have to be very clear,
which means you cannot depend on a leader. When you choose a leader you
do so out of confusion,
and so your leaders are also confused, and that is what is happening in the
world. Therefore you
cannot look to your leader for guidance or help.
A mind that wishes to
understand a problem must not only understand the problem completely,
wholly, but must be able
to follow it swiftly, because the problem is never static. The problem is
always new, whether it is
a problem of starvation, a psychological problem, or any problem. Any
crisis is always new;
therefore, to understand it, a mind must always be fresh, clear, swift in its
pursuit. I think most of
us realize the urgency of an inward revolution, which alone can bring
about a radical
transformation of the outer, of society. This is the problem with which I
myself
and all
seriously-intentioned people are occupied. How to bring about a fundamental, a
radical
transformation in society,
is our problem; and this transformation of the outer cannot take place
without inner revolution.
Since society is always static, any action, any reform which is accomplished
without this inward
revolution becomes equally static; so there is no hope without this constant
inward revolution,
because, without it, outer action becomes repetitive, habitual. The action of
relationship between you
and another, between you and me, is society; and that society becomes
static, it has no
life-giving quality, so long as there is not this constant inward revolution, a
creative,
psychological
transformation; and it is because there is not this constant inward revolution
that
society is always becoming
static, crystallized, and has therefore constantly to be broken up.
What is the relationship
between yourself and the misery, the confusion, in and around you? Surely
this confusion, this
misery, did not come into being by itself. You and I have created it, not a
capitalist
nor a communist nor a
fascist society, but you and I have created it in our relationship with each
other. What you are within
has been projected without, on to the world; what you are, what you
think and what you feel,
what you do in your everyday existence, is projected outwardly, and that
constitutes the world. If
we are miserable, confused, chaotic within, by projection that becomes the
world, that becomes
society, because the relationship between yourself and myself between myself
and another is society -
society is the product of our relationship - and if our relationship is
confused,
egocentric, narrow,
limited, national, we project that and bring chaos into the world.
What you are, the world
is. So your problem is the world’s problem. Surely, this is a simple and
basic fact, is it not? In
our relationship with the one or the many we seem somehow to overlook
this point all the time. We
want to bring about alteration through a system or through a revolution
in ideas or values based
on a system, forgetting that it is you and I who create society, who bring
about confusion or order
by the way in which we live. So we must begin near, that is we must
concern ourselves with our
daily existence, with our daily thoughts and feelings and actions which
are revealed in the manner
of earning our livelihood and in our relationship with ideas or beliefs.
This is our daily
existence, is it not? We are concerned with livelihood, getting jobs, earning
money;
we are concerned with the
relationship with our family or with our neighbours, and we are concerned
with ideas and with
beliefs. Now, if you examine our occupation, it is fundamentally based on envy,
it is not just a means of
earning a livelihood. Society is so constructed that it is a process of
constant
conflict, constant
becoming; it is based on greed, on envy, envy of your superior; the clerk
wanting
to become the manager,
which shows that he is not just concerned with earning a livelihood, a
means of subsistence, but
with acquiring position and prestige. This attitude naturally creates havoc
The First And Last Freedom
18 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 4. CHAPTER 3 ’INDIVIDUAL
AND SOCIETY’
in society, in
relationship, but if you and I were only concerned with livelihood we should
find out the
right means of earning it,
a means not based on envy. Envy is one of the most destructive factors
in relationship because
envy indicates the desire for power, for position, and it ultimately leads to
politics; both are closely
related. The clerk, when he seeks to become a manager, becomes a factor
in the creation of
power-politics which produce war; so he is directly responsible for war.
What is our relationship
based on ? The relationship between yourself and myself, between yourself
and another - which is
society - what is it based on? Surely not on love, though we talk about it. It
is
not based on love, because
if there were love there would be order, there would be peace, happiness
between you and me. But in
that relationship between you and me there is a great deal of ill will
which assumes the form of
respect. If we were both equal in thought, in feeling, there would be no
respect, there would be no
ill will, because we would be two individuals meeting, not as disciple and
teacher, nor as the
husband dominating the wife, nor as the wife dominating the husband. When
there is ill will there is
a desire to dominate which arouses jealousy, anger, passion, all of which
in our relationship
creates constant conflict from which we try to escape, and this produces
further
chaos, further misery.
Now as regards ideas which
are part of our daily existence, beliefs and formulations, are they not
distorting our minds? For
what is stupidity? Stupidity is the giving of wrong values to those things
which the mind creates, or
to those things which the hands produce. Most of our thoughts spring
from the self-protective
instinct, do they not? Our ideas, oh, so many of them, do they not receive
the wrong significance,
one which they have not in themselves? Therefore when we believe in any
form, whether religious,
economic or social, when we believe in God, in ideas, in a social system
which separates man from
man, in nationalism and so on, surely we are giving a wrong significance
to belief which indicates
stupidity, for belief divides people, doesn’t unite people. So we see that by
the way we live we can
produce order or chaos, peace or conflict, happiness or misery.
So our problem, is it
not?, is whether there can be a society which is static, and at the same time
an individual in whom this
constant revolution is taking place. That is, revolution in society must
begin with the inner,
psychological transformation of the individual. Most of us want to see a
radical
transformation in the
social structure. That is the whole battle that is going on in the world - to
bring
about a social revolution
through communistic or any other means. Now if there is a social revolution,
that is an action with
regard to the outer structure of man, however radical that social revolution
may be its very nature is
static if there is no inward revolution of the individual, no psychological
transformation. Therefore
to bring about a society that is not repetitive, nor static, not
disintegrating,
a society that is
constantly alive, it is imperative that there should be a revolution in the
psychological
structure of the
individual, for without inward, psychological revolution, mere transformation
of the
outer has very little
significance. That is society is always becoming crystallized, static, and is
therefore always
disintegrating. However much and however wisely legislation may be promulgated,
society is always in the
process of decay because revolution must take place within, not merely
outwardly. I think it is
important to understand this and not slur over it. Outward action, when
accomplished, is over, is
static; if the relationship between individuals, which is society, is not the
outcome of inward
revolution, then the social structure, being static, absorbs the individual and
therefore makes him
equally static, repetitive. Realizing this, realizing the extraordinary
significance
of this fact, there can be
no question of agreement or disagreement. It is a fact that society is always
crystallizing and
absorbing the individual and that constant, creative revolution can only be in
the
individual, not in
society, not in the outer. That is creative revolution can take place only in
individual
The First And Last Freedom
19 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 4. CHAPTER 3 ’INDIVIDUAL
AND SOCIETY’
relationship, which is
society. We see how the structure of the present society in India, in Europe,
in
America, in every part of
the world, is rapidly disintegrating; and we know it within our own lives. We
can observe it as we go
down the streets. We do not need great historians to tell us the fact that our
society is crumbling; and
there must be new architects, new builders, to create a new society. The
structure must be built on
a new foundation, on newly discovered facts and values. Such architects
do not yet exist. There
are no builders, none who, observing, becoming aware of the fact that the
structure is collapsing,
are transforming themselves into architects. That is our problem. We see
society crumbling,
disintegrating; and it is we, you and I, who have to be the architects. You and
I
have to rediscover the
values and build on a more fundamental, lasting foundation; because if we
look to the professional
architects, the political and religious builders, we shall be precisely in the
same position as before.
Because you and I are not
creative, we have reduced society to this chaos, so you and I have
to be creative because the
problem is urgent; you and I must be aware of the causes of the
collapse of society and
create a new structure based not on mere imitation but on our creative
understanding. Now this
implies, does it not?, negative thinking. Negative thinking is the highest
form of understanding.
That is in order to understand what is creative thinking, we must approach
the problem negatively,
because a positive approach to the problem - which is that you and I must
become creative in order
to build a new structure of society - will be imitative. To understand that
which is crumbling, we
must investigate it, examine it negatively - not with a positive system, a
positive formula, a
positive conclusion.
Why is society crumbling,
collapsing, as it surely is ? One of the fundamental reasons is that the
individual, you, has
ceased to be creative. I will explain what I mean. You and I have become
imitative, we are copying,
outwardly and inwardly. Outwardly, when learning a technique, when
communicating with each
other on the verbal level, naturally there must be some imitation, copy. I
copy words. To become an
engineer, I must first learn the technique, then use the technique to build
a bridge. There must be a
certain amount of imitation, copying, in outward technique, but when
there is inward,
psychological imitation surely we cease to be creative. Our education, our
social
structure, our so-called
religious life, are all based on imitation; that is I fit into a particular
social
or religious formula. I
have ceased to be a real individual; psychologically, I have become a mere
repetitive machine with
certain conditioned responses, whether those of the Hindu, the Christian, the
Buddhist, the German or
the Englishman. Our responses are conditioned according to the pattern
of society, whether it is
eastern or western, religious or materialistic. So one of the fundamental
causes of the
disintegration of society is imitation, and one of the disintegrating factors
is the leader,
whose very essence is
imitation.
In order to understand the
nature of disintegrating society is it not important to inquire whether
you and I, the individual,
can be creative? We can see that when there is imitation there must
be disintegration; when
there is authority there must be copying. And since our whole mental,
psychological make-up is
based on authority, there must be freedom from authority, to be creative.
Have you not noticed that
in moments of creativeness, those rather happy moments of vital interest,
there is no sense of
repetition, no sense of copying? Such moments are always new, fresh, creative,
happy. So we see that one
of the fundamental causes of the disintegration of society is copying,
which is the worship of
authority.
The First And Last Freedom
20 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 4 ’SELF-KNOWLEDGE’
THE PROBLEMS OF the world
are so colossal, so very complex, that to understand and so
to resolve them one must
approach them in a very simple and direct manner; and simplicity,
directness, do not depend
on outward circumstances nor on our particular prejudices and moods.
As I was pointing out, the
solution is not to be found through conferences, blueprints, or through
the substitution of new
leaders for old, and so on, The solution obviously lies in the creator of that
problem, in the creator of
the mischief, of the hate and of the enormous misunderstanding that exists
between human beings, The
creator of this mischief, the creator of these problems, is the individual,
you and I, not the world
as we think of it. The world is your relationship with another. The world is
not something separate
from you and me; the world, society, is the relationship that we establish or
seek to establish between
each other.
So you and I are the
problem, and not the world, because the world is the projection of ourselves
and to understand the
world we must understand ourselves. That world is not separate from us;
we are the world, and our
problems are the world’s problems. This cannot be repeated too often,
because we are so sluggish
in our mentality that we think the world’s problems are not our business,
that they have to be
resolved by the United Nations or by substituting new leaders for the old. It
is a very dull mentality
that thinks like that, because we are responsible for this frightful misery
and confusion in the
world, this ever-impending war. To transform the world, we must begin with
ourselves; and what is
important in beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must
be to understand ourselves
and not to leave it to others to transform themselves or to bring about
a modified change through
revolution, either of the left or of the right. It is important to understand
that this is our
responsibility, yours and mine; because, however small may be the world we live
in,
if we can transform
ourselves, bring about a radically different point of view in our daily
existence,
then perhaps we shall affect
the world at large, the extended relationship with others.
21
CHAPTER 5. CHAPTER 4 ’SELF-KNOWLEDGE’
As I said, we are going to
try and find out the process of understanding ourselves, which is not an
isolating process. It is
not withdrawal from the world, because you cannot live in isolation. To be is
to be related, and there
is no such thing as living in isolation. It is the lack of right relationship
that
brings about conflicts,
misery and strife; however small our world may be, if we can transform our
relationship in that
narrow world, it will be like a wave extending outward all the time. I think it
is
important to see that
point, that the world is our relationship, however narrow; and if we can bring
a transformation there,
not a superficial but a radical transformation, then we shall begin actively
to transform the world.
Real revolution is not according to any particular pattern, either of the
left or of the right, but
it is a revolution of values, a revolution from sensate values to the values
that are not sensate or
created by environmental influences. To find these true values which will
bring about a radical
revolution, a transformation or a regeneration, it is essential to understand
oneself. Self-knowledge is
the beginning of wisdom, and therefore the beginning of transformation
or regeneration. To
understand oneself there must be the intention to understand - and that is
where
our difficulty comes in.
Although most of us are discontented, we desire to bring about a sudden
change, our discontent is
canalized merely to achieve a certain result; being discontented, we either
seek a different job or
merely succumb to environment. Discontent, instead of setting us aflame,
causing us to question
life, the whole process of existence, is canalized, and thereby we become
mediocre, losing that
drive, that intensity to find out the whole significance of existence. Therefore
it
is important to discover
these things for ourselves, because self-knowledge cannot be given to us by
another, it is not to be
found through any book. We must discover, and to discover there must be the
intention, the search, the
inquiry. So long as that intention to find out, to inquire deeply, is weak or
does not exist, mere
assertion or a casual wish to find out about oneself is of very little
significance.
Thus the transformation of
the world is brought about by the transformation of oneself, because the
self is the product and a
part of the total process of human existence. To transform oneself,
selfknowledge
is essential; without
knowing what you are, there is no basis for right thought, and without
knowing yourself there
cannot be transformation, One must know oneself as one is, not as one
wishes to be which is
merely an ideal and therefore fictitious, unreal; it is only that which is that
can
be transformed, not that
which you wish to be. To know oneself as one is requires an extraordinary
alertness of mind, because
what is is constantly undergoing transformation, change, and to follow
it swiftly the mind must
not be tethered to any particular dogma or belief, to any particular pattern
of action. If you would
follow anything it is no good being tethered. To know yourself, there must be
the awareness, the
alertness of mind in which there is freedom from all beliefs, from all
idealization
because beliefs and ideals
only give you a colour, perverting true perception. If you want to know
what you are you cannot
imagine or have belief in something which you are not. If I am greedy,
envious, violent, merely
having an ideal of non-violence, of non-greed, is of little value. But to know
that one is greedy or
violent, to know and understand it, requires an extraordinary perception, does
it not? It demands
honesty, clarity of thought, whereas to pursue an ideal away from what is is an
escape; it prevents you
from discovering and acting directly upon what you are.
The understanding of what
you are, whatever it be - ugly or beautiful, wicked or mischievous - the
understanding of what you
are, without distortion, is the beginning of virtue. Virtue is essential, for
it gives freedom. It is
only in virtue that you can discover, that you can live - not in the
cultivation
of a virtue, which merely
brings about respectability, not understanding and freedom. There is
a difference between being
virtuous and becoming virtuous. Being virtuous comes through the
understanding of what is,
whereas becoming virtuous is postponement, the covering up of what is
with what you would like
to be. Therefore in becoming virtuous you are avoiding action directly upon
The First And Last Freedom
22 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 5. CHAPTER 4 ’SELF-KNOWLEDGE’
what is. This process of
avoiding what is through the cultivation of the ideal is considered virtuous;
but if you look at it
closely and directly you will see that it is nothing of the kind. It is merely
a
postponement of coming
face to face with what is. Virtue is not the becoming of what is not; virtue is
the understanding of what
is and therefore the freedom from what is. Virtue is essential in a society
that is rapidly
disintegrating. In order to create a new world, a new structure away from the
old,
there must be freedom to
discover; and to be free, there must be virtue, for without virtue there is
no freedom. Can the
immoral man who is striving to become virtuous ever know virtue? The man
who is not moral can never
be free, and therefore he can never find out what reality is. Reality can
be found only in
understanding what is; and to understand what is, there must be freedom,
freedom
from the fear of what is.
To understand that process
there must be the intention to know what is, to follow every thought,
feeling and action; and to
understand what is is extremely difficult, because what is is never still,
never static, it is always
in movement. The what is is what you are, not what you would like to
be; it is not the ideal,
because the ideal is fictitious, but it is actually what you are doing,
thinking
and feeling from moment to
moment. What is is the actual, and to understand the actual requires
awareness, a very alert,
swift mind. But if we begin to condemn what is, if we begin to blame or
resist it, then we shall
not understand its movement. If I want to understand somebody, I cannot
condemn him: I must
observe, study him. I must love the very thing I am studying. If you want
to understand a child, you
must love and not condemn him. You must play with him, watch his
movements, his
idiosyncrasies, his ways of behaviour; but if you merely condemn, resist or
blame
him, there is no
comprehension of the child. Similarly, to understand what is, one must observe
what one thinks, feels and
does from moment to moment. That is the actual. Any other action, any
ideal or ideological
action, is not the actual; it is merely a wish, a fictitious desire to be
something
other than what is.
To understand what is
requires a state of mind in which there is no identification or condemnation,
which means a mind that is
alert and yet passive. We are in that state when we really desire to
understand something; when
the intensity of interest is there, that state of mind comes into being.
When one is interested in
understanding what is, the actual state of the mind, one does not need to
force, discipline, or
control it; on the contrary, there is passive alertness, watchfulness. This
state of
awareness comes when there
is interest, the intention to understand.
The fundamental
understanding of oneself does not come through knowledge or through the
accumulation of experiences,
which is merely the cultivation of memory. The understanding
of oneself is from moment
to moment; if we merely accumulate knowledge of the self, that
very knowledge prevents
further understanding, because accumulated knowledge and experience
becomes the centre through
which thought focuses and has its being. The world is not different from
us and our activities
because it is what we are which creates the problems of the world; the
difficulty
with the majority of us is
that we do not know ourselves directly, but seek a system, a method, a
means of operation by
which to solve the many human problems.
Now is there a means, a
system, of knowing oneself? Any clever person, any philosopher, can invent
a system, a method; but
surely the following of a system will merely produce a result created by that
system, will it not? If I
follow a particular method of knowing myself, then I shall have the result
which
that system necessitates;
but the result will obviously not be the understanding of myself. That is
by following a method, a
system, a means through which to know myself, I shape my thinking, my
activities, according to a
pattern; but the following of a pattern is not the understanding of oneself.
The First And Last Freedom
23 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 5. CHAPTER 4 ’SELF-KNOWLEDGE’
Therefore there is no
method for self-knowledge. Seeking a method invariably implies the desire
to attain some result -
and that is what we all want. We follow authority - if not that of a person,
then of a system, of an
ideology - because we want a result which will be satisfactory, which will
give us security. We
really do not want to understand ourselves, our impulses and reactions, the
whole process of our
thinking, the conscious as well as the unconscious; we would rather pursue
a system which assures us
of a result. But the pursuit of a system is invariably the outcome of our
desire for security, for
certainty, and the result is obviously not the understanding of oneself. When
we follow a method, we
must have authorities - the teacher, the guru, the saviour, the Master - who
will guarantee us what we
desire; and surely that is not the way to self-knowledge.
Authority prevents the
understanding of oneself, does it not? Under the shelter of an authority,
a guide, you may have
temporarily a sense of security, a sense of well-being, but that is not
the understanding of the
total process of oneself. Authority in its very nature prevents the full
awareness of oneself and
therefore ultimately destroys freedom; in freedom alone can there be
creativeness. There can be
creativeness only through self-knowledge. Most of us are not creative;
we are repetitive
machines, mere gramophone records playing over and over again certain songs of
experience, certain
conclusions and memories, either our own or those of another. Such repetition
is not creative being -
but it is what we want. Because we want to be inwardly secure, we are
constantly seeking methods
and means for this security, and thereby we create authority, the worship
of another, which destroys
comprehension, that spontaneous tranquillity of mind in which alone there
can be a state of
creativeness.
Surely our difficulty is
that most of us have lost this sense of creativeness. To be creative does not
mean that we must paint
pictures or write poems and become famous. That is not creativeness - it
is merely the capacity to
express an idea, which the public applauds or disregards. Capacity and
creativeness should not be
confused. Capacity is not creativeness. Creativeness is quite a different
state of being, is it not?
It is a state in which the self is absent, in which the mind is no longer a
focus
of our experiences, our
ambitions, our pursuits and our desires. Creativeness is not a continuous
state, it is new from
moment to moment, it is a movement in which there is not the ‘me’, the ‘mine’,
in which the thought is
not focused on any particular experience, ambition, achievement, purpose
and motive. It is only
when the self is not that there is creativeness - that state of being in which
alone there can be
reality, the creator of all things. But that state cannot be conceived or
imagined,
it cannot be formulated or
copied, it cannot be attained through any system, through any philosophy,
through any discipline; on
the contrary, it comes into being only through understanding the total
process of oneself.
The understanding of
oneself is not a result, a culmination; it is seeing oneself from moment to
moment in the mirror of
relationship - one’s relationship to property, to things, to people and to
ideas. But we find it
difficult to be alert, to be aware, and we prefer to dull our minds by
following
a method, by accepting
authorities, superstitions and gratifying theories; so our minds become
weary, exhausted and insensitive.
Such a mind cannot be in a state of creativeness. That state
of creativeness comes only
when the self, which is the process of recognition and accumulation,
ceases to be; because,
after all, consciousness as the ‘me’ is the centre of recognition, and
recognition is merely the
process of the accumulation of experience. But we are all afraid to be
nothing, because we all
want to be something. The little man wants to be a big man, the unvirtuous
wants to be virtuous, the
weak and obscure crave power, position and authority. This is the incessant
activity of the mind. Such
a mind cannot be quiet and therefore can never understand the state of
The First And Last Freedom
24 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 5. CHAPTER 4 ’SELF-KNOWLEDGE’
creativeness.
In order to transform the
world about us, with its misery, wars, unemployment, starvation, class
divisions and utter
confusion, there must be a transformation in ourselves. The revolution must
begin within oneself - but
not according to any belief or ideology, because revolution based on an
idea, or in conformity to
a particular pattern, is obviously no revolution at all. To bring about a
fundamental revolution in
oneself one must understand the whole process of one’s thought and
feeling in relationship.
That is the only solution to all our problems - not to have more disciplines,
more beliefs, more
ideologies and more teachers. If we can understand ourselves as we are from
moment to moment without
the process of accumulation, then we shall see how there comes a
tranquillity that is not a
product of the mind, a tranquillity that is neither imagined nor cultivated;
and
only in that state of
tranquillity can there be creativeness.
The First And Last Freedom
25 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 5 ’ACTION AND IDEA’
I SHOULD LIKE TO discuss
the problem of action. This may be rather abstruse and difficult at the
beginning but I hope that
by thinking it over we shall be able to see the issue clearly, because our
whole existence, our whole
life, is a process of action.
Most of us live in a
series of actions, of seemingly unrelated, disjointed actions, leading to
disintegration, to
frustration. It is a problem that concerns each one of us, because we live by
action and without action
there is no life, there is no experience, there is no thinking. Thought is
action; and merely to
pursue action at one particular level of consciousness, which is the outer,
merely to be caught up in
outward action without understanding the whole process of action itself,
will inevitably lead us to
frustration, to misery.
Our life is a series of
actions or a process of action at different levels of consciousness.
Consciousness is
experiencing, naming and recording. That is consciousness is challenge and
response, which is
experiencing, then terming or naming, and then recording, which is memory.
This process is action, is
it not? Consciousness is action; and without challenge, response, without
experiencing, naming or
terming, without recording, which is memory, there is no action.
Now action creates the
actor. That is the actor comes into being when action has a result, an end
in view. If there is no
result in action, then there is no actor; but if there is an end or a result in
view, then action brings
about the actor. Thus actor, action, and end or result, is a unitary process,
a single process, which
comes into being when action has an end in view. Action towards a result is
will; otherwise there is
no will, is there? The desire to achieve an end brings about will, which is the
actor - I want to achieve,
I want to write a book, I want to be a rich man, I want to paint a picture.
We are familiar with these
three states: the actor, the action, and the end. That is our daily existence.
I am just explaining what
is; but we will begin to understand how to transform what is only when we
26
CHAPTER 6. CHAPTER 5 ’ACTION
AND IDEA’
examine it clearly, so
that there is no illusion or prejudice, no bias with regard to it. Now these
three
states which constitute
experience - the actor, the action, and the result - are surely a process of
becoming. Otherwise there
is no becoming, is there? If there is no actor, and if there is no action
towards an end, there is
no becoming; but life as we know it, our daily life, is a process of becoming.
I am poor and I act with
an end in view, which is to become rich. I am ugly and I want to become
beautiful. Therefore my
life is a process of becoming something. The will to be is the will to become,
at different levels of
consciousness, in different states, in which there is challenge, response,
naming
and recording. Now this
becoming is strife, this becoming is pain, is it not? It is a constant
struggle:
I am this, and I want to
become that.
Therefore, then, the
problem is: Is there not action without this becoming? Is there not action
without
this pain, without this
constant battle? If there is no end, there is no actor because action with an
end in view creates the
actor. But can there be action without an end in view, and therefore no actor
- that is without the
desire for a result? Such action is not a becoming, and therefore not a strife.
There is a state of
action, a state of experiencing, without the experiencer and the experience. This
sounds rather philosophical
but it is really quite simple.
In the moment of
experiencing, you are not aware of yourself as the experiencer apart from the
experience; you are in a
state of experiencing. Take a very simple example: you are angry. In that
moment of anger there is
neither the experiencer nor the experience; there is only experiencing. But
the moment you come out of
it, a split second after the experiencing, there is the experiencer and
the experience, the actor
and the action with an end in view - which is to get rid of or to suppress
the anger. We are in this
state repeatedly, in the state of experiencing; but we always come out of it
and give it a term, naming
and recording it, and thereby giving continuity to becoming.
If we can understand
action in the fundamental sense of the word then that fundamental
understanding will affect
our superficial activities also; but first we must understand the fundamental
nature of action. Now is
action brought about by an idea? Do you have an idea first and act
afterwards? Or does action
come first and then, because action creates conflict, you build around it
an idea? Does action
create the actor or does the actor come first?
It is very important to
discover which comes first. If the idea comes first, then action merely conforms
to an idea, and therefore
it is no longer action but imitation, compulsion according to an idea. It is
very important to realize
this; because, as our society is mostly constructed on the intellectual or
verbal level, the idea
comes first with all of us and action follows. Action is then the handmaid of
an
idea, and the mere
construction of ideas is obviously detrimental to action. Ideas breed further
ideas,
and when there is merely
the breeding of ideas there is antagonism, and society becomes top-heavy
with the intellectual
process of ideation. Our social structure is very intellectual; we are
cultivating
the intellect at the
expense of every other factor of our being and therefore we are suffocated with
ideas.
Can ideas ever produce
action, or do ideas merely mould thought and therefore limit action? When
action is compelled by an
idea, action can never liberate man. It is extraordinarily important for us
to understand this point.
If an idea shapes action, then action can never bring about the solution to
our miseries because,
before it can be put into action, we have first to discover how the idea comes
into being. The
investigation of ideation, of the building up of ideas, whether of the
socialists, the
capitalists, the
communists, or of the various religions, is of the utmost importance,
especially when
The First And Last Freedom
27 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 6. CHAPTER 5 ’ACTION
AND IDEA’
our society is at the edge
of a precipice, inviting another catastrophe, another excision. Those who
are really serious in
their intention to discover the human solution to our many problems must first
understand this process of
ideation.
What do we mean by an
idea? How does an idea come into being? And can idea and action be
brought together? Suppose
I have an idea and I wish to carry it out. I seek a method of carrying out
that idea, and we
speculate, waste our time and energies in quarrelling over how the idea should
be
carried out. So, it is
really very important to find out how ideas come into being; and after
discovering
the truth of that we can
discuss the question of action. Without discussing ideas, merely to find out
how to act has no meaning.
Now how do you get an idea
- a very simple idea, it need not be philosophical, religious or economic?
Obviously it is a process
of thought, is it not? Idea is the outcome of a thought process. Without a
thought process, there can
be no idea. So I have to understand the thought process itself before I
can understand its product,
the idea. What do we mean by thought ? When do you think? Obviously
thought is the result of a
response, neurological or psychological, is it not? It is the immediate
response of the senses to
a sensation, or it is psychological, the response of stored-up memory.
There is the immediate
response of the nerves to a sensation, and there is the psychological
response of stored-up
memory, the influence of race, group, guru, family, tradition, and so on - all
of
which you call thought. So
the thought process is the response of memory, is it not? You would have
no thoughts if you had no
memory; and the response of memory to a certain experience brings the
thought process into
action. Say, for example, I have the stored-up memories of nationalism, calling
myself a Hindu. That
reservoir of memories of past responses actions, implications, traditions,
customs, responds to the
challenge of a Mussulman, a Buddhist or a Christian, and the response
of memory to the challenge
inevitably brings about a thought process. Watch the thought process
operating in yourself and
you can test the truth of this directly. You have been insulted by someone,
and that remains in your
memory; it forms part of the background. When you meet the person, which
is the challenge, the
response is the memory of that insult. So the response of memory, which is the
thought process, creates
an idea; therefore the idea is always conditioned - and this is important to
understand. That is to say
the idea is the result of the thought process, the thought process is the
response of memory, and
memory is always conditioned. Memory is always in the past, and that
memory is given life in
the present by a challenge. Memory has no life in itself; it comes to life in
the
present when confronted by
a challenge. And all memory, whether dormant or active, is conditioned,
is it not?
Therefore there has to be
quite a different approach. You have to find out for yourself, inwardly,
whether you are acting on
an idea, and if there can be action without ideation. Let us find out what
that is: action which is
not based on an idea.
When do you act without
ideation? When is there an action which is not the result of experience? An
action based on experience
is, as we said, limiting, and therefore a hindrance. Action which is not the
outcome of an idea is
spontaneous when the thought process, which is based on experience, is not
controlling action; which
means that there is action independent of experience when the mind is not
controlling action. That
is the only state in which there is understanding: when the mind, based on
experience, is not guiding
action: when thought, based on experience, is not shaping action. What
is action, when there is
no thought process? Can there be action without thought process? That is I
want to build a bridge, a
house. I know the technique, and the technique tells me how to build it. We
The First And Last Freedom
28 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 6. CHAPTER 5 ’ACTION
AND IDEA’
call that action. There is
the action of writing a poem, of painting, of governmental responsibilities, of
social, environmental
responses. All are based on an idea or previous experience, shaping action.
But is there an action
when there is no ideation?
Surely there is such
action when the idea ceases; and the idea ceases only when there is love. Love
is not memory. Love is not
experience. Love is not the thinking about the person that one loves,
for then it is merely
thought. You cannot think of love. You can think of the person you love or are
devoted to - your guru,
your image, your wife, your husband; but the thought, the symbol, is not the
real which is love.
Therefore love is not an experience.
When there is love there
is action, is there not?, and is that action not liberating? It is not the
result of
mentation, and there is no
gap between love and action, as there is between idea and action. Idea
is always old, casting its
shadow on the present and we are ever trying to build a bridge between
action and idea. When
there is love - which is not mentation, which is not ideation, which is not
memory, which is not the
outcome of an experience, of a practised discipline - then that very love
is action. That is the
only thing that frees. So long as there is mentation, so long as there is the
shaping of action by an
idea which is experience, there can be no release; and so long as that
process continues, all
action is limited. When the truth of this is seen, the quality of love, which
is
not mentation, which you
cannot think about, comes into being.
One has to be aware of
this total process, of how ideas come into being, how action springs from
ideas, and how ideas
control action and therefore limit action, depending on sensation. It doesn’t
matter whose ideas they
are, whether from the left or from the extreme right. So long as we cling to
ideas, we are in a state
in which there can be no experiencing at all. Then we are merely living in
the field of time in the
past, which gives further sensation, or in the future, which is another form of
sensation. It is only when
the mind is free from idea that there can be experiencing.
Ideas are not truth; and
truth is something that must be experienced directly, from moment to
moment. It is not an
experience which you want - which is then merely sensation. Only when
one can go beyond the
bundle of ideas - which is the ‘me’, which is the mind, which has a partial or
complete continuity - only
when one can go beyond that, when thought is completely silent, is there
a state of experiencing.
Then one shall know what truth is.
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29 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 6 ’BELIEF’
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE are
very intimately related to desire; and perhaps, if we can understand
these two issues, we can
see how desire works and understand its complexities.
One of the things, it
seems to me, that most of us eagerly accept and take for granted is the
question
of beliefs. I am not
attacking beliefs. What we are trying to do is to find out why we accept
beliefs;
and if we can understand
the motives, the causation of acceptance, then perhaps we may be able
not only to understand why
we do it, but also be free of it. One can see how political and religious
beliefs, national and
various other types of beliefs, do separate people, do create conflict,
confusion,
and antagonism - which is
an obvious fact; and yet we are unwilling to give them up. There is the
Hindu belief the Christian
belief, the Buddhist - innumerable sectarian and national beliefs, various
political ideologies, all
contending with each other, trying to convert each other. One can see,
obviously, that belief is
separating people, creating intolerance; is it possible to live without belief?
One can find that out only
if one can study oneself in relationship to a bel1ef. Is it possible to live in
this world without a
belief - not change beliefs, not substitute one belief for another, but be
entirely
free from all beliefs, so
that one meets life anew each minute? This, after all, is the truth: to have
the
capacity of meeting
everything anew, from moment to moment, without the conditioning reaction of
the past, so that there is
not the cumulative effect which acts as a barrier between oneself and that
which is.
If you consider, you will
see that one of the reasons for the desire to accept a belief is fear. If we
had no belief, what would
happen to us? Shouldn’t we be very frightened of what might happen?
If we had no pattern of
action, based on a belief - either in God, or in communism, or in socialism,
or in imperialism, or in
some kind of religious formula, some dogma in which we are conditioned -
we should feel utterly
lost, shouldn’t we? And is not this acceptance of a belief the covering up of
that fear - the fear of
being really nothing, of being empty? After all, a cup is useful only when it
is
30
CHAPTER 7. CHAPTER 6 ’BELIEF’
empty; and a mind that is
filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations, is really
an uncreative mind; it is
merely a repetitive mind. To escape from that fear - that fear of emptiness,
that fear of loneliness,
that fear of stagnation, of not arriving, not succeeding, not achieving, not
being something, not
becoming something - is surely one of the reasons, is it not?, why we accept
beliefs so eagerly and
greedily. And, through acceptance of belief, do we understand ourselves?
On the contrary. A belief,
religious or political, obviously hinders the understanding of ourselves. It
acts as a screen through
which we are looking at ourselves. And can we look at ourselves without
beliefs? If we remove
those beliefs, the many beliefs that one has, is there anything left to look
at?
If we have no beliefs with
which the mind has identified itself, then the mind, without identification, is
capable of looking at
itself as it is - and then, surely, there is the beginning of the understanding
of
oneself.
It is really a very
interesting problem, this question of belief and knowledge. What an
extraordinary
part it plays in our life!
How many beliefs we have! Surely the more intellectual, the more cultured,
the more spiritual, if I
can use that word, a person is, the less is his capacity to understand. The
savages have innumerable
superstitions, even in the modern world. The more thoughtful, the more
awake, the more alert are
perhaps the less believing. That is because belief binds, belief isolates;
and we see that is so
throughout the world, the economic and the political world, and also in the
so-called spiritual world.
You believe there is God, and perhaps I believe that there is no God;
or you believe in the
complete state control of everything and of every individual, and I believe in
private enterprise and all
the rest of it; you believe that there is only one Saviour and through him
you can achieve your goal,
and I don’t believe so. Thus you with your belief and I with mine are
asserting ourselves. Yet
we both talk of love, of peace, of unity of mankind, of one life - which means
absolutely nothing; because
actually the very belief is a process of isolation. You are a Brahmin, I
a non-Brahmin; you are a
Christian, I a Mussulman, and so on. You talk of brotherhood and I also
talk of the same
brotherhood, love and peace; but in actuality we are separated, we are dividing
ourselves. A man who wants
peace and who wants to create a new world, a happy world, surely
cannot isolate himself
through any form of belief. Is that clear? It may be verbally, but, if you see
the
significance and validity
and the truth of it, it will begin to act.
We see that where there is
a process of desire at work there must be the process of isolation
through belief because
obviously you believe in order to be secure economically, spiritually, and
also inwardly. I am not
talking of those people who believe for economic reasons, because they are
brought up to depend on
their jobs and therefore will be Catholics, Hindus - it does not matter what
- as long as there is a
job for them. We are also not discussing those people who cling to a belief
for the sake of
convenience. Perhaps with most of us it is equally so. For convenience, we
believe
in certain things.
Brushing aside these economic reasons, we must go more deeply into it. Take
the people who believe
strongly in anything, economic, social or spiritual; the process behind it is
the psychological desire
to be secure, is it not? And then there is the desire to continue. We are
not discussing here
whether there is or there is not continuity; we are only discussing the urge,
the
constant impulse to
believe. A man of peace, a man who would really understand the whole process
of human existence, cannot
be bound by a belief, can he? He sees his desire at work as a means
to being secure. Please do
not go to the other side and say that I am preaching non-religion. That
is not my point at all. My
point is that as long as we do not understand the process of desire in the
form of belief, there must
be contention, there must be conflict, there must be sorrow, and man will
be against man - which is
seen every day. So if I perceive, if I am aware, that this process takes
the form of belief, which
is an expression of the craving for inward security, then my problem is not
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31 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 7. CHAPTER 6 ’BELIEF’
that I should believe this
or that but that I should free myself from the desire to be secure. Can the
mind be free from the
desire for security? That is the problem - not what to believe and how much
to believe. These are
merely expressions of the inward craving to be secure psychologically, to be
certain about something,
when everything is so uncertain in the world.
Can a mind, can a
conscious mind, can a personality be free from this desire to be secure? We
want to be secure and
therefore need the aid of our estates, our property and our family. We want
to be secure inwardly and
also spiritually by erecting walls of belief, which are an indication of this
craving to be certain. Can
you as an individual be free from this urge, this craving to be secure,
which expresses itself in
the desire to believe in something? If we are not free of all that, we are a
source of contention; we
are not peacemaking; we have no love in our hearts. Belief destroys; and
this is seen in our everyday
life. Can I see myself when I am caught in this process of desire, which
expresses itself in
clinging to a belief? Can the mind free itself from belief - not find a
substitute for
it but be entirely free
from it? You cannot verbally answer ”yes” or ”no” to this; but you can
definitely
give an answer if your
intention is to become free from belief. You then inevitably come to the point
at
which you are seeking the
means to free yourself from the urge to be secure. Obviously there is no
security inwardly which,
as you like to believe, will continue. You like to believe there is a God who
is carefully looking after
your petty little things, telling you whom you should see, what you should
do and how you should do
it. This is childish and immature thinking. You think the Great Father is
watching every one of us. That
is a mere projection of your own personal liking. It is obviously not
true. Truth must be
something entirely different.
Our next problem is that
of knowledge. Is knowledge necessary to the understanding of truth?
When I say ”I know”, the
implication is that there is knowledge. Can such a mind be capable of
investigating and
searching out what is reality? And besides, what is it we know, of which we are
so
proud? Actually what is it
we know? We know information; we are full of information and experience
based on our conditioning,
our memory and our capacities. When you say ”I know”, what do you
mean? Either the
acknowledgement that you know is the recognition of a fact, of certain
information,
or it is an experience
that you have had. The constant accumulation of information, the acquisition
of various forms of
knowledge, all constitutes the assertion ”I know”, and you start translating
what
you have read, according
to your background, your desire, your experience. Your knowledge is a
thing in which a process
similar to the process of desire is at work. Instead of belief we substitute
knowledge. ”I know, I have
had experience, it cannot be refuted; my experience is that, on that
I completely rely; these
are indications of that knowledge. But when you go behind it, analyse it,
look at it more
intelligently and carefully, you will find that the very assertion ”I know” is
another wall
separating you and me.
Behind that wall you take refuge, seeking comfort, security. Therefore the
more knowledge a mind is
burdened with, the less capable it is of understanding.
I do not know if you have
ever thought of this problem of acquiring knowledge - whether knowledge
does ultimately help us to
love, to be free from those qualities which produce conflict in ourselves
and with our neighbours;
whether knowledge ever frees the mind of ambition. Because ambition
is, after all, one of the
qualities that destroy relationship, that put man against man. If we would
live at peace with each
other surely ambition must completely come to an end - not only political,
economic, social ambition,
but also the more subtle and pernicious ambition, the spiritual ambition
- to be something. Is it
ever possible for the mind to be free from this accumulating process of
knowledge, this desire to
know?
It is a very interesting
thing to watch how in our life these two, knowledge and belief, play an
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32 Jiddu
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CHAPTER 7. CHAPTER 6 ’BELIEF’
extraordinarily powerful
part. Look how we worship those who have immense knowledge and
erudition! Can you
understand the meaning of it? If you would find something new, experience
something which is not a
projection of your imagination, your mind must be free, must it not? It
must be capable of seeing
something new. Unfortunately, every time you see something new you
bring in all the
information known to you already, all your knowledge, all your past memories;
and
obviously you become
incapable of looking, incapable of receiving anything that is new, that is not
of the old. Please don’t
immediately translate this into detail. If I do not know how to get back to
my house, I shall be lost;
if I do not know how to run a machine, I shall be of little use. That is quite
a different thing. We are
not discussing that here. We are discussing knowledge that is used as a
means to security, the
psychological and inward desire to be something. What do you get through
knowledge? The authority
of knowledge, the weight of knowledge, the sense of importance, dignity,
the sense of vitality and
what-not? A man who says ”I know”, ”There is‘’ or ”There is not” surely has
stopped thinking, stopped
pursuing this whole process of desire.
Our problem then, as I see
it, is that we are bound, weighed down by belief, by knowledge; and is it
possible for a mind to be
free from yesterday and from the beliefs that have been acquired through
the process of yesterday?
Do you understand the question? Is it possible for me as an individual
and you as an individual
to live in this society and yet be free from the belief in which we have been
brought up? Is it possible
for the mind to be free of all that knowledge, all that authority? We read
the various scriptures,
religious books. There they have very carefully described what to do, what
not to do, how to attain
the goal, what the goal is and what God is. You all know that by heart and
you have pursued that. That
is your knowledge, that is what you have acquired, that is what you
have learnt; along that path
you pursue. Obviously what you pursue and seek, you will find. But is it
reality? is it not the
projection of your own knowledge? It is not reality. Is it possible to realize
that
now - not tomorrow, but
now - and say ”I see the truth of it”, and let it go, so that your mind is not
crippled by this process
of imagination, of projection?
Is the mind capable of
freedom from belief? You can only be free from it when you understand the
inward nature of the
causes that make you hold on to it, not only the conscious but the unconscious
motives as well, that make
you believe. After all, we are not merely a superficial entity functioning
on the conscious level. We
can find out the deeper conscious and unconscious activities if we give
the unconscious mind a
chance, because it is much quicker in response than the conscious mind.
While your conscious mind
is quietly thinking, listening and watching, the unconscious mind is much
more active, much more
alert and much more receptive; it can, therefore, have an answer. Can the
mind which has been
subjugated, intimidated, forced, compelled to believe, can such a mind be free
to think? Can it look anew
and remove the process of isolation between you and another? Please
do not say that belief
brings people together. It does not. That is obvious. No organized religion
has ever done that. Look
at yourselves in your own country. You are all believers, but are you all
together? Are you all
united? You yourselves know you are not. You are divided into so many petty
little parties, castes;
you know the innumerable divisions. The process is the same right through the
world - whether in the
east or in the west - Christians destroying Christians, murdering each other
for petty little things,
driving people into camps and so on, the whole horror of war. Therefore belief
does not unite people.
That is so clear. If that is clear and that is true, and if you see it, then it
must
be followed. But the
difficulty is that most of us do not see, because we are not capable of facing
that inward insecurity,
that inward sense of being alone. We want something to lean on, whether
it is the State, whether
it is the caste, whether it is nationalism, whether it is a Master or a Saviour
or anything else. And when
we see the falseness of all this, the mind then is capable - it may be
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33 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 7. CHAPTER 6 ’BELIEF’
temporally for a second -
of seeing the truth of it; even though when it is too much for it, it goes
back.
But to see temporarily is
sufficient; if you can see it for a fleeting second, it is enough; because you
will then see an
extraordinary thing taking place. The unconscious is at work, though the
conscious
may reject. It is not a
progressive second; but that second is the only thing, and it will have its own
results, even in spite of
the conscious mind struggling against it.
So our question is:Is it
possible for the mind to be free from knowledge and belief?” Is not the mind
made up of knowledge and
belief? Is not the structure of the mind belief and knowledge? Belief and
knowledge are the
processes of recognition, the centre of the mind. The process is enclosing, the
process is conscious as
well as unconscious. Can the mind be free of its own structure? Can the
mind cease to be? That is
the problem. Mind, as we know it, has belief behind it, has desire, the
urge to be secure,
knowledge, and accumulation of strength. If, with all its power and
superiority,
one cannot think for oneself
there can be no peace in the world. You may talk about peace, you may
organize political
parties, you may shout from the housetops; but you cannot have peace; because
in the mind is the very
basis which creates contradiction, which isolates and separates. A man of
peace, a man of
earnestness, cannot isolate himself and yet talk of brotherhood and peace. It
is just
a game, political or
religious, a sense of achievement and ambition. A man who is really earnest
about this, who wants to
discover, has to face the problem of knowledge and belief; he has to go
behind it, to discover the
whole process of desire at work, the desire to be secure, the desire to be
certain.
A mind that would be in a
state in which the new can take place - whether it be the truth, whether it
be God, or what you will -
must surely cease to acquire, to gather; it must put aside all knowledge.
A mind burdened with
knowledge cannot possibly understand, surely, that which is real, which is not
measurable.
The First And Last Freedom
34 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 7 ’EFFORT’
FOR MOST OF US, our whole
life is based on effort, some kind of volition. We cannot conceive
of an action without
volition, without effort; our life is based on it. Our social, economic and
socalled
spiritual life is a series
of efforts, always culminating in a certain result. And we think effort is
essential, necessary.
Why do we make effort? Is
it not, put simply, in order to achieve a result, to become something,
to reach a goal? If we do
not make an effort, we think we shall stagnate. We have an idea about
the goal towards which we
are constantly striving; and this striving has become part of our life. If
we want to alter
ourselves, if we want to bring about a radical change in ourselves, we make a
tremendous effort to
eliminate the old habits, to resist the habitual environmental influences and
so
on. So we are used to this
series of efforts in order to find or achieve something, in order to live at
all.
Is not all such effort the
activity of the self? Is not effort self-centred activity? If we make an effort
from the centre of the
self, it must inevitably produce more conflict, more confusion, more misery.
Yet we keep on making
effort after effort. Very few of us realize that the self-centred activity of
effort does not clear up
any of our problems. On the contrary, it increases our confusion and our
misery and our sorrow. We
know this; and yet we continue hoping somehow to break through this
self-centred activity of
effort, the action of the will.
I think we shall
understand the significance of life if we understand what it means to make an
effort.
Does happiness come
through effort? Have you ever tried to be happy? It is impossible, is it
not? You struggle to be
happy and there is no happiness, is there? Joy does not come through
suppression, through
control or indulgence. You may indulge but there is bitterness at the end.
You may suppress or
control, but there is always strife in the hidden. Therefore happiness does
35
CHAPTER 8. CHAPTER 7 ’EFFORT’
not come through effort,
nor joy through control and suppression; and still all our life is a series
of suppressions, a series
of controls, a series of regretful indulgences. Also there is a constant
overcoming, a constant
struggle with our passions, our greed and our stupidity. So do we not strive,
struggle, make effort, in
the hope of finding happiness, finding something which will give us a feeling
of peace, a sense of love?
Yet does love or understanding come by strife? I think it is very important
to understand what we mean
by struggle, strife or effort.
Does not effort mean a
struggle to change what is into what is not, or into what it should be or
should
become? That is we are
constantly struggling to avoid facing what is, or we are trying to get away
from it or to transform or
modify what is. A man who is truly content is the man who understands
what is, gives the right
significance to what is. That is true contentment; it is not concerned with
having few or many
possessions but with the understanding of the whole significance of what is;
and that can only come
when you recognize what is, when you are aware of it, not when you are
trying to modify it or
change it.
So we see that effort is a
strife or a struggle to transform that which is into something which you wish
it to be. I am only
talking about psychological struggle, not the struggle with a physical problem,
like
engineering or some
discovery or transformation which is purely technical. I am only talking of
that
struggle which is
psychological and which always overcomes the technical. You may build with
great
care a marvellous society,
using the infinite knowledge science has given us. But so long as the
psychological strife and
struggle and battle are not understood and the psychological overtones and
currents are not overcome,
the structure of society, however marvellously built, is bound to crash,
as has happened over and
over again.
Effort is a distraction
from what is. The moment I accept what is there is no struggle. Any form of
struggle or strife is an
indication of distraction; and distraction, which is effort, must exist so long
as
psychologically I wish to transform
what is into something it is not.
First we must be free to
see that joy and happiness do not come through effort. Is creation through
effort, or is there
creation only with the cessation of effort? When do you write, paint or sing? When
do you create? Surely when
there is no effort, when you are completely open, when on all levels
you are in complete
communication, completely integrated. Then there is joy and then you begin to
sing or write a poem or
paint or fashion something. The moment of creation is not born of struggle.
Perhaps in understanding
the question of creativeness we shall be able to understand what we mean
by effort. Is creativeness
the outcome of effort, and are we aware in those moments when we are
creative? Or is
creativeness a sense of total self-forgetfulness, that sense when there is no
turmoil,
when one is wholly unaware
of the movement of thought, when there is only a complete, full, rich
being? is that state the
result of travail, of struggle, of conflict, of effort? I do not know if you
have
ever noticed that when you
do something easily, swiftly, there is no effort, there is complete absence
of struggle; but as our
lives are mostly a series of battles, conflicts and struggles, we cannot
imagine
a life, a state of being,
in which strife has fully ceased.
To understand the state of
being without strife, that state of creative existence, surely one must
inquire into the whole
problem of effort. We mean by effort the striving to fulfil oneself, to become
something, don’t we? I am
this, and I want to become that; I am not that, and I must become that.
In becoming ‘that’, there
is strife, there is battle, conflict, struggle. In this struggle we are
concerned
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36 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 8. CHAPTER 7 ’EFFORT’
inevitably with fulfilment
through the gaining of an end; we seek self-fulfilment in an object, in a
person, in an idea, and
that demands constant battle, struggle, the effort to become, to fulfil. So
we have taken this effort
as inevitable; and I wonder if it is inevitable - this struggle to become
something? Why is there
this struggle? Where there is the desire for fulfilment, in whatever degree
and at whatever level,
there must be struggle. Fulfilment is the motive, the drive behind the effort;
whether it is in the big
executive, the housewife, or a poor man, there is this battle to become, to
fulfil, going on.
Now why is there the
desire to fulfil oneself? Obviously, the desire to fulfil, to become something,
arises when there is
awareness of being nothing. Because I am nothing, because I am insufficient,
empty, inwardly poor, I
struggle to become something; outwardly or inwardly I struggle to fulfil myself
in a person, in a thing,
in an idea. To fill that void is the whole process of our existence. Being
aware
that we are empty,
inwardly poor, we struggle either to collect things outwardly, or to cultivate
inward
riches. There is effort
only when there is an escape from that inward void through action, through
contemplation, through
acquisition, through achievement, through power, and so on. That is our
daily existence. I am
aware of my insufficiency, my inward poverty, and I struggle to run away from
it or to fill it. This
running away, avoiding, or trying to cover up the void, entails struggle,
strife, effort.
Now if one does not make
an effort to run away, what happens? One lives with that loneliness, that
emptiness; and in
accepting that emptiness one will find that there comes a creative state which
has nothing to do with
strife, with effort. Effort exists only so long as we are trying to avoid that
inward loneliness,
emptiness, but when we look at it, observe it, when we accept what is without
avoidance, we will find
there comes a state of being in which all strife ceases. That state of being
is creativeness and it is
not the result of strife. But when there is understanding of what is, which is
emptiness, inward
insufficiency, when one lives with that insufficiency and understands it fully,
there
comes creative reality,
creative intelligence, which alone brings happiness.
Therefore action as we
know it is really reaction, it is a ceaseless becoming, which is the denial,
the avoidance of what is;
but when there is awareness of emptiness without choice, without
condemnation or
justification, then in that understanding of what is there is action, and this
action
is creative being. You
will understand this if you are aware of yourself in action. Observe yourself
as you are acting, not
only outwardly but see also the movement of your thought and feeling. When
you are aware of this
movement you will see that the thought process, which is also feeling and
action, is based on an
idea of becoming. The idea of becom1ng arises only when there is a sense
of insecurity, and that
sense of insecurity comes when one is aware of the inward void. If you are
aware of that process of
thought and feeling, you will see that there is a constant battle going on, an
effort to change, to
modify, to alter what is. This is the effort to become, and becoming is a
direct
avoidance of what is.
Through self-knowledge, through constant awareness, you will find that strife,
battle, the conflict of
becoming, leads to pain, to sorrow and ignorance. It is only if you are aware
of inward insufficiency
and live with it without escape, accepting it wholly, that you will discover an
extraordinary
tranquillity, a tranquillity which is not put together, made up, but a
tranquillity which
comes with understanding
of what is. Only in that state of tranquillity is there creative being.
The First And Last Freedom
37 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 8 ’CONTRADICTION’
WE SEE CONTRADICTION in us
and about us; because we are in contradiction, there is lack of
peace in us and therefore
outside us. There is in us a constant state of denial and assertion - what
we want to be and what we
are. The state of contradiction creates conflict and this conflict does
not bring about peace -
which is a simple, obvious fact. This inward contradiction should not be
translated into some kind
of philosophical dualism, because that is a very easy escape. That is by
saying that contradiction
is a state of dualism we think we have solved it - which is obviously a mere
convention, a contributory
escape from actuality.
Now what do we mean by
conflict, by contradiction? Why is there a contradiction in me? - this
constant struggle to be
something apart from what I am. I am this, and I want to be that. This
contradiction in us is a
fact, not a metaphysical dualism. Metaphysics has no significance in
understanding what is. We
may discuss, say, dualism, what it is, if it exists, and so on; but of what
value is it if we don’t
know that there is contradiction in us, opposing desires, opposing interests,
opposing pursuits? I want
to be good and I am not able to be. This contradiction, this opposition
in us, must be understood
because it creates conflict; and in conflict, in struggle, we cannot create
individually. Let us be
clear on the state we are in. There is contradiction, so there must be
struggle;
and struggle is
destruction, waste. In that state we can produce nothing but antagonism,
strife, more
bitterness and sorrow. If
we can understand this fully and hence be free of contradiction, then there
can be inward peace, which
will bring understanding of each other. The problem is this. Seeing that
conflict is destructive,
wasteful, why is it that in each of us there is contradiction? To understand
that, we must go a little
further. Why is there the sense of opposing desires? I do not know if we
are aware of it in
ourselves - this contradiction, this sense of wanting and not wanting,
remembering
something and trying to
forget it in order to find something new. Just watch it. It is very simple and
very normal. It is not
something extraordinary. The fact is, there is contradiction. Then why does
this contradiction arise?
38
CHAPTER 9. CHAPTER 8 ’CONTRADICTION’
What do we mean by
contradiction? Does it not imply an impermanent state which is being opposed
by another impermanent
state? I think I have a permanent desire, I posit in myself a permanent
desire and another desire
arises which contradicts it; this contradiction brings about conflict, which
is waste. That is to say
there is a constant denial of one desire by another desire, one pursuit
overcoming another
pursuit. Now, is there such a thing as a permanent desire ? Surely, all desire
is impermanent - not
metaphysically, but actually. I want a job. That is I look to a certain job as
a
means of happiness; and
when I get it, I am dissatisfied. I want to become the manager, then the
owner, and so on and on,
not only in this world, but in the so-called spiritual world - the teacher
becoming the principal,
the priest becoming the bishop, the pupil becoming the master.
This constant becoming,
arriving at one state after another, brings about contradiction, does it not?
Therefore, why not look at
life not as one permanent desire but as a series of fleeting desires always
in opposition to each
other? Hence the mind need not be in a state of contradiction. If I regard life
not as a permanent desire
but as a series of temporary desires which are constantly changing, then
there is no contradiction.
Contradiction arises only
when the mind has a fixed point of desire; that is when the mind does
not regard all desire as
moving, transient, but seizes upon one desire and makes that into a
permanency - only then,
when other desires arise, is there contradiction. But all desires are in
constant movement, there
is no fixation of desire. There is no fixed point in desire; but the mind
establishes a fixed point
because it treats everything as a means to arrive, to gain; and there must
be contradiction, conflict, as long as one is arriving. You want
to arrive, you want to succeed, you
want to find an ultimate God or truth which will be your permanent
satisfaction. Therefore you are not
seeking truth, you are not seeking God. You are seeking lasting
gratification, and that gratification
you clothe with an idea, a respectable-sounding word such as God,
truth; but actually we are all
seeking gratification, and we place that gratification, that
satisfaction, at the highest point, calling it
God, and the lowest point is drink. So long as the mind is seeking
gratification, there is not much
difference between God and drink. Socially, drink may be bad; but
the inward desire for gratification,
for gain, is even more harmful, is it not? If you really want to
find truth, you must be extremely honest,
not merely at the verbal level but altogether; you must be
extraordinarily clear, and you cannot be
clear if you are unwilling to face facts.
Now what brings about contradiction in each one of us? Surely it
is the desire to become something,
is it not? We all want to become something: to become successful
in the world and, inwardly, to
achieve a result. So long as we think in terms of time, in terms
of achievement, in terms of position,
there must be contradiction. After all, the mind is the product of
time. Thought is based on yesterday,
on the past; and so long as thought is functioning within the
field of time, thinking in terms of the
future, of becoming, gaining, achieving, there must be
contradiction, because then we are incapable
of facing exactly what is. Only in realizing, in understanding, in
being choicelessly aware of what is,
is there a possibility of freedom from that disintegrating factor
which is contradiction.
Therefore it is essential, is it not?, to understand the whole
process of our thinking, for it is there that
we find contradiction. Thought itself has become a contradiction
because we have not understood
the total process of ourselves; and that understanding is possible
only when we are fully aware of
our thought, not as an observer operating upon his thought, but
integrally and without choice - which
is extremely arduous. Then only is there the dissolution of that
contradiction which is so detrimental,
so painful.
The First And Last Freedom 39 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 9. CHAPTER 8 ’CONTRADICTION’
So long as we are trying to achieve a psychological result, so
long as we want inward security, there
must be a contradiction in our life. I do not think that most of
us are aware of this contradiction; or, if
we are, we do not see its real significance. On the contrary,
contradiction gives us an impetus to live;
the very element of friction makes us feel that we are alive. The
effort, the struggle of contradiction,
gives us a sense of vitality. That is why we love wars, that is
why we enjoy the battle of frustrations.
So long as there is the desire to achieve a result, which is the
desire to be psychologically secure,
there must be a contradiction; and where there is contradiction,
there cannot be a quiet mind.
Quietness of mind is essential to understand the whole
significance of life. Thought can never be
tranquil; thought, which is the product of time, can never find
that which is timeless, can never know
that which is beyond time. The very nature of our thinking is a
contradiction, because we are always
thinking in terms of the past or of the future; therefore we are
never fully cognizant, fully aware of
the present.
To be fully aware of the present is an extraordinarily difficult
task because the mind is incapable of
facing a fact directly without deception. Thought is the product
of the past and therefore it can only
think in terms of the past or the future; it cannot be completely
aware of a fact in the present. So
long as thought, which is the product of the past, tries to
eliminate contradiction and all the problems
that it creates, it is merely pursuing a result, trying to achieve
an end, and such thinking only creates
more contradiction and hence conflict, misery and confusion in us
and, therefore, about us.
To be free of contradiction, one must be aware of the present
without choice. How can there be
choice when you are confronted with a fact? Surely the
understanding of the fact is made impossible
so long as thought is trying to operate upon the fact in terms of
becoming, changing, altering.
Therefore self-knowledge is the beginning of understanding;
without self-knowledge, contradiction
and conflict will continue. To know the whole process, the
totality of oneself, does not require any
expert, any authority. The pursuit of authority only breeds fear.
No expert, no specialist, can show
us how to understand the process of the self. One has to study it
for oneself. You and I can help
each other by talking about it, but none can unfold it for us, no
specialist, no teacher, can explore
it for us. We can be aware of it only in our relationship - in our
relationship to things, to property,
to people and to ideas. In relationship we shall discover that
contradiction arises when action is
approximating itself to an idea. The idea is merely the
crystallization of thought as a symbol, and
the effort to live up to the symbol brings about a contradiction.
Thus, so long as there is a pattern of thought, contradiction will
continue; to put an end to the
pattern, and so to contradiction, there must be self-knowledge.
This understanding of the self is not
a process reserved for the few. The self is to be understood in
our everyday speech, in the way we
think and feel, in the way we look at another. If we can be aware
of every thought, of every feeling,
from moment to moment, then we shall see that in relationship the
ways of the self are understood.
Then only is there a possibility of that tranquillity of mind in
which alone the ultimate reality can come
into being.
The First And Last Freedom 40 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 9 ’WHAT IS THE SELF?’
Do WE KNOW WHAT we mean by the self? By that, I mean the idea, the
memory, the conclusion,
the experience, the various forms of nameable and unnameable
intentions, the conscious endeavour
to be or not to be, the accumulated memory of the unconscious, the
racial, the group, the individual,
the clan, and the whole of it all, whether it is projected
outwardly in action or projected spiritually as
virtue; the striving after all this is the self. In it is included
the competition, the desire to be. The
whole process of that is the self; and we know actually when we
are faced with it that it is an evil
thing. I am using the word ‘evil’ intentionally, because the self
is dividing: the self is self-enclosing:
its activities, however noble, are separative and isolating. We
know all this. We also know those
extraordinary moments when the self is not there, in which there
is no sense of endeavour, of effort,
and which happens when there is love.
It seems to me that it is important to understand how experience
strengthens the self. If we are
earnest, we should understand this problem of experience. Now what
do we mean by experience?
We have experience all the time, impressions; and we translate
those impressions, and we react
or act according to them; we are calculating, cunning, and so on.
There is the constant interplay
between what is seen objectively and our reaction to it, and
interplay between the conscious and
the memories of the unconscious.
According to my memories, I react to whatever I see, to whatever I
feel. In this process of reacting
to what I see, what I feel, what I know, what I believe,
experience is taking place, is it not? Reaction,
response to something seen, is experience. When I see you, I
react; the naming of that reaction is
experience. If I do not name that reaction it is not an
experience. Watch your own responses and
what is taking place about you. There is no experience unless
there is a naming process going on at
the same time. If I do not recognize you, how can I have the
experience of meeting you? It sounds
simple and right. Is it not a fact? That is if I do not react
according to my memories, according to my
conditioning, according to my prejudices, how can I know that I
have had an experience?
41
CHAPTER 10. CHAPTER 9 ’WHAT IS THE SELF?’
Then there is the projection of various desires. I desire to be
protected, to have security inwardly;
or I desire to have a Master, a guru, a teacher, a God; and I
experience that which I have projected;
that is I have projected a desire which has taken a form, to which
I have given a name; to that I
react. It is my projection. It is my naming. That desire which
gives me an experience makes me say:
”I have experience”, ”I have met the Master”, or ”I have not met
the Master”. You know the whole
process of naming an experience. Desire is what you call
experience, is it not?
When I desire silence of the mind, what is taking place? What
happens? I see the importance
of having a silent mind, a quiet mind, for various reasons;
because the Upanishads have said so,
religious scriptures have said so, saints have said it, and also
occasionally I myself feel how good it is
to be quiet, because my mind is so very chatty all the day. At
times I feel how nice, how pleasurable
it is to have a peaceful mind, a silent mind. The desire is to
experience silence. I want to have a
silent mind, and so I ask ”How can I get it?” I know what this or
that book says about meditation,
and the various forms of discipline. So through discipline I seek
to experience silence. The self, the
‘me’, has therefore established itself in the experience of
silence.
I want to understand what is truth; that is my desire, my longing;
then there follows my projection
of what I consider to be the truth, because I have read lots about
it; I have heard many people
talk about it; religious scriptures have described it. I want all
that. What happens? The very want,
the very desire is projected, and I experience because I recognize
that projected state. If I did not
recognize that state, I would not call it truth. I recognize it
and I experience it; and that experience
gives strength to the self, to the ‘me’, does it not? So the self
becomes entrenched in the experience.
Then you say ”I know”, ”the Master exists”,’‘there is God” or ”there
is no God; you say that a particular
political system is right and all others are not.
So experience is always strengthening the ‘me’. The more you are
entrenched in your experience,
the more does the self get strengthened. As a result of this, you
have a certa1n strength of character,
strength of knowledge, of belief, which you display to other
people because you know they are not
as clever as you are, and because you have the gift of the pen or
of speech and you are cunning.
Because the self is still acting, so your beliefs, your Masters,
your castes, your economic system
are all a process of isolation, and they therefore bring
contention. You must, if you are at all serious
or earnest in this, dissolve this centre completely and not
justify it. That is why we must understand
the process of experience.
Is it possible for the mind, fur the self, not to project, not to
desire, not to experience? We see that all
experiences of the self are a negation, a destruction, and yet we
call them positive action, don’t we?
That is what we call the positive way of life. To undo this whole
process is, to you, negation. Are
you right in that? Can we, you and I, as individuals, go to the
root of it and understand the process
of the self? Now what brings about dissolution of the self?
Religious and other groups have offered
identification, have they not? ”Identify yourself with a larger,
and the self disappears”, is what they
say. But surely identification is still the process of the self;
the larger is simply the projection of the
‘me’, which I experience and which therefore strengthens the ‘me’.
All the various forms of discipline, belief and knowledge surely
only strengthen the self. Can we
find an element which will dissolve the self? Or is that a wrong
question? That is what we want
basically. We want to find something which will dissolve the ‘me’,
do we not? We think there are
various means, namely, identification, belief, etc; but all of
them are at the same level; one is not
The First And Last Freedom 42 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 10. CHAPTER 9 ’WHAT IS THE SELF?’
superior to the other, because all of them are equally powerful in
strengthening the self the ‘me’. So
can I see the ‘me’ wherever it functions, and see its destructive
forces and energy? Whatever name
I may give to it, it is an isolating force, it is a destructive
force, and I want to find a way of dissolving it.
You must have asked this yourself - ”I see the ‘I’ functioning all
the time and always bringing anxiety,
fear, frustration, despair, misery, not only to myself but to all
around me. Is it possible for that self
to be dissolved, not partially but completely?” Can we go to the
root of it and destroy it? That is the
only way of truly functioning, is it not? I do not want to be
partially intelligent but intelligent in an
integrated manner. Most of us are intelligent in layers, you
probably in one way and I in some other
way. Some of you are intelligent in your business work, some
others in your office work, and so on;
people are intelligent in different ways; but we are not
integrally intelligent. To be integrally intelligent
means to be without the self. Is it possible?
Is it possible for the self to be completely absent now? You know
it is possible. What are the
necessary ingredients, requirements? What is the element that
brings it about? Can I find it? When
I put that question ”Can I find it?” surely I am convinced that it
is possible; so I have already created
an experience in which the self is going to be strengthened, is it
not? Understanding of the self
requires a great deal of intelligence, a great deal of
watchfulness, alertness, watching ceaselessly,
so that it does not slip away. I, who am very earnest, want to
dissolve the self. When I say that,
I know it is possible to dissolve the self. The moment I say;I
want to dissolve this”, in that there is
still the experiencing of the self; and so the self is
strengthened. So how is it possible for the self
not to experience? One can see that the state of creation is not
at all the experience of the self
Creation is when the self is not there, because creation is not
intellectual, is not of the mind, is not
self-projected, is something beyond all experiencing. So is it
possible for the mind to be quite still,
in a state of non-recognition, or non-experiencing, to be in a
state in which creation can take place,
which means when the self is not there, when the self is absent?
The problem is this, is it not? Any
movement of the mind, positive or negative, is an experience which
actually strengthens the ‘me’. Is
it possible for the mind not to recognize? That can only take
place when there is complete silence,
but not the silence which is an experience of the self and which
therefore strengthens the self.
Is there an entity apart from the self which looks at the self and
dissolves the self? Is there a spiritual
entity which supercedes the self and destroys it, which puts it
aside? We think there is, don’t we?
Most religious people think there is such an element. The
materialist says, ”It is impossible for the
self to be destroyed; it can only be conditioned and restrained -
politically, economically and socially;
we can hold it firmly within a certain pattern and we can break
it; and therefore it can be made to
lead a high life, a moral life, and not to interfere with anything
but to follow the social pattern, and to
function merely as a machine”. That we know. There are other
people, the so-called religious ones
- they are not really religious, though we call them so - who say,
”Fundamentally, there is such an
element. If we can get into touch with it, it will dissolve the
self”.
Is there such an element to dissolve the self? Please see what we
are doing. We are forcing the
self into a corner. If you allow yourself to be forced into the
corner, you will see what will happen.
We should like there to be an element which is timeless, which is
not of the self, which, we hope,
will come and intercede and destroy the self - and which we call
God. Now is there such a thing
which the mind can conceive? There may be or there may not be;
that is not the point. But when
the mind seeks a timeless spiritual state which will go into
action in order to destroy the self is that
not another form of experience which is strengthening the ‘me’?
When you believe, is that not what
is actually taking place? When you believe that there is truth,
God, the timeless state, immortality, is
The First And Last Freedom 43 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 10. CHAPTER 9 ’WHAT IS THE SELF?’
that not the process of strengthening the self? The self has
projected that thing which you feel and
believe will come and destroy the self. So, having projected this
idea of continuance in a timeless
state as a spiritual entity, you have an experience; and such
experience only strengthens the self;
and therefore what have you done? You have not really destroyed
the self but only given it a different
name, a different quality; the self is still there, because you
have experienced it. Thus our action
from the beginning to the end is the same action, only we think it
is evolving, growing, becoming
more and more beautiful; but, if you observe inwardly, it is the
same action going on, the same ‘me’
functioning at different levels with different labels, different
names.
When you see the whole process, the cunning, extraordinary
inventions, the intelligence of the
self, how it covers itself up through identification, through
virtue, through experience, through belief,
through knowledge; when you see that the mind is moving in a circle,
in a cage of its own making,
what happens? When you are aware of it, fully cognizant of it,
then are you not extraordinarily quiet
- not through compulsion, not through any reward, not through any
fear? When you recognize that
every movement of the mind is merely a form of strengthening the
self when you observe it, see
it, when you are completely aware of it in action, when you come
to that point - not ideologically,
verbally, not through projected experiencing, but when you are
actually in that state - then you will
see that the mind, being utterly still, has no power of creating.
Whatever the mind creates is in a
circle, within the field of the self. When the mind is
non-creating there is creation, which is not a
recognizable process. Reality, truth, is not to be recognized. For
truth to come, belief, knowledge,
experiencing, the pursuit of virtue - all this must go. The
virtuous person who is conscious of
pursuing virtue can never find reality. He may be a very decent
person; but that is entirely different
from being a man of truth, a man who understands. To the man of
truth, truth has come into
being. A virtuous man is a righteous man, and a righteous man can
never understand what is truth
because virtue to him is the covering of the self the
strengthening of the self because he is pursuing
virtue. When he says ”I must be without greed”, the state of
non-greed which he experiences only
strengthens the self. That is why it is so important to be poor,
not only in the things of the world but
also in belief and in knowledge. A man with worldly riches or a
man rich in knowledge and belief will
never know anything but darkness, and will be the centre of all
mischief and misery. But if you and I,
as individuals, can see this whole working of the self, then we
shall know what love is. I assure you
that is the only reformation which can possibly change the world.
Love is not of the self. Self cannot
recognize love. You say ”I love; but then, in the very saying of
it, in the very experiencing of it, love
is not. But, when you know love, self is not. When there is love,
self is not.
The First And Last Freedom 44 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 10 ’FEAR’
WHAT IS FEAR? Fear can exist only in relation to something, not in
isolation. How can I be afraid
of death, how can I be afraid of something I do not know? I can be
afraid only of what I know. When
I say I am afraid of death, am I really afraid of the unknown,
which is death, or am I afraid of losing
what I have known? My fear is not of death but of losing my
association with things belonging to me.
My fear is always in relation to the known, not to the unknown.
My inquiry now is how to be free from the fear of the known, which
is the fear of losing my family, my
reputation, my character, my bank account, my appetites and so on.
You may say that fear arises
from conscience; but your conscience is formed by your
conditioning, so conscience is still the result
of the known. What do I know? Knowledge is having ideas, having
opinions about things, having
a sense of continuity as in relation to the known, and no more.
Ideas are memories, the result of
experience, which is response to challenge. I am afraid of the
known, which means I am afraid of
losing people, things or ideas, I am afraid of discovering what I
am, afraid of being at a loss, afraid of
the pain which might come into being when I have lost or have not
gained or have no more pleasure.
There is fear of pain. Physical pain is a nervous response, but
psychological pain arises when I hold
on to things that give me satisfaction, for then I am afraid of
anyone or anything that may take them
away from me. The psychological accumulations prevent
psychological pain as long as they are
undisturbed; that is I am a bundle of accumulations, experiences,
which prevent any serious form
of disturbance - and I do not want to be disturbed. Therefore I am
afraid of anyone who disturbs
them. Thus my fear is of the known, I am afraid of the accumulations,
physical or psychological,
that I have gathered as a means of warding off pain or preventing
sorrow. But sorrow is in the very
process of accumulating to ward off psychological pain. Knowledge
also helps to prevent pain. As
medical knowledge helps to prevent physical pain, so beliefs help
to prevent psychological pain, and
that is why I am afraid of losing my beliefs, though I have no
perfect knowledge or concrete proof of
45
CHAPTER 11. CHAPTER 10 ’FEAR’
the reality of such beliefs. I may reject some of the traditional
beliefs that have been foisted on me
because my own experience gives me strength, confidence,
understanding; but such beliefs and the
knowledge which I have acquired are basically the same - a means
of warding off pain.
Fear exists so long as there is accumulation of the known, which
creates the fear of losing. Therefore
fear of the unknown is really fear of losing the accumulated
known. Accumulation invariably means
fear, which in turn means pain; and the moment I say ”I must not
lose” there is fear. Though my
intention in accumulating is to ward off pain, pain is inherent in
the process of accumulation. The
very things which I have create fear, which is pain.
The seed of defence brings offence. I want physical security; thus
I create a sovereign government,
which necessitates armed forces, which means war, which destroys
security. Wherever there is
a desire for self-protection, there is fear. When I see the
fallacy of demanding security I do not
accumulate any more. If you say that you see it but you cannot
help accumulating, it is because you
do not really see that, inherently, in accumulation there is pain.
Fear exists in the process of accumulation and belief in something
is part of the accumulative
process. My son dies, and I believe in reincarnation to prevent me
psychologically from having
more pain; but, in the very process of believing, there is doubt.
Outwardly I accumulate things, and
bring war; inwardly I accumulate beliefs, and bring pain. So long
as I want to be secure, to have
bank accounts, pleasures and so on, so long as I want to become
something, physiologically or
psychologically, there must be pain. The very things I am doing to
ward off pain bring me fear, pain.
Fear comes into being when I desire to be in a particular pattern.
To live without fear means to live
without a particular pattern. When I demand a particular way of
living that in itself is a source of
fear. My difficulty is my desire to live in a certain frame. Can I
not break the frame? I can do so only
when I see the truth: that the frame is causing fear and that this
fear is strengthening the frame. If
I say I must break the frame because I want to be free of fear,
then I am merely following another
pattern which will cause further fear. Any action on my part based
on the desire to break the frame
will only create another pattern, and therefore fear. How am I to
break the frame without causing
fear, that is without any conscious or unconscious action on my
part with regard to it? This means
that I must not act, I must make no movement to break the frame.
What happens to me when I am
simply looking at the frame without doing anything about it? I see
that the mind itself is the frame,
the pattern; it lives in the habitual pattern which it has created
for itself. Therefore, the mind itself is
fear. Whatever the mind does goes towards strengthening an old
pattern or furthering a new one.
This means that whatever the mind does to get rid of fear causes
fear.
Fear finds various escapes. The common variety is identification,
is it not? - identification with
the country, with the society, with an idea. Haven’t you noticed
how you respond when you see
a procession, a military procession or a religious procession, or
when the country is in danger of
being invaded? You then identify yourself with the country, with a
being, with an ideology. There
are other times when you identify yourself with your child, with
your wife, with a particular form of
action, or inaction. Identification is a process of self-forgetfulness.
So long as I am conscious of
the ‘me’ I know there is pain, there is struggle, there is
constant fear. But if I can identify myself
with something greater, with something worth while, with beauty,
with life, with truth, with belief, with
knowledge, at least temporarily, there is an escape from the ‘me’,
is there not? If I talk about ”my
country” I forget myself temporarily, do I not? If I can say
something about God, I forget myself? If I
The First And Last Freedom 46 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 11. CHAPTER 10 ’FEAR’
can identify myself with my family, with a group, with a
particular party, with a certain ideology, then
there is a temporary escape.
Identification therefore is a form of escape from the self, even
as virtue is a form of escape from
the self. The man who pursues virtue is escaping from the self and
he has a narrow mind. That is
not a virtuous mind, for virtue is something which cannot be
pursued. The more you try to become
virtuous, the more strength you give to the self, to the ‘me’.
Fear, which is common to most of us in
different forms, must always find a substitute and must therefore
increase our struggle. The more
you are identified with a substitute, the greater the strength to
hold on to that for which you are
prepared to struggle, to die, because fear is at the back.
Do we now know what fear is? Is it not the non-acceptance of what
is? We must understand the
word ‘acceptance’. I am not using that word as meaning the effort
made to accept. There is no
question of accepting when I perceive what is. When I do not see
clearly what is, then I bring in
the process of acceptance. Therefore fear is the non-acceptance of
what is. How can I, who am a
bundle of all these reactions, responses, memories, hopes,
depressions, frustrations, who am the
result of the movement of consciousness blocked, go beyond? Can
the mind, without this blocking
and hindrance, be conscious? We know, when there is no hindrance,
what extraordinary joy there
is. Don’t you know when the body is perfectly healthy there is a
certain joy, well-being; and don’t
you know when the mind is completely free, without any block, when
the centre of recognition as
the‘me’ is not there, you experience a certain joy? Haven’t you
experienced this state when the self
is absent? Surely we all have.
There is understanding and freedom from the self only when I can
look at it completely and integrally
as a whole; and I can do that only when I understand the whole
process of all activity born of desire
which is the very expression of thought - for thought is not
different from desire - without justifying it,
without condemning it, without suppressing it; if I can understand
that, then I shall know if there is
the possibility of going beyond the restrictions of the self.
The First And Last Freedom 47 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 11 ’SIMPLICITY’
I WOULD LIKE To discuss what is simplicity, and perhaps from that
arrive at the discovery of
sensitivity. We seem to think that simplicity is merely an outward
expression, a withdrawal: having
few possessions, wearing a loincloth, having no home, putting on
few clothes, having a small bank
account. Surely that is not simplicity. That is merely an outward
show. It seems to me that simplicity
is essential; but simplicity can come into being only when we
begin to understand the significance
of self-knowledge.
Simplicity is not merely adjustment to a pattern. It requires a
great deal of intelligence to be simple
and not merely conform to a particular pattern, however worthy outwardly.
Unfortunately most of us
begin by being simple externally, in outward things. It is
comparatively easy to have few things and to
be satisfied with few things; to be content with little and
perhaps to share that little with others. But a
mere outward expression of simplicity in things, in possessions,
surely does not imply the simplicity
of inward being. Because, as the world is at present, more and
more things are being urged upon
us, outwardly, externally. Life is becoming more and more complex.
In order to escape from that,
we try to renounce or be detached from things - from cars, from
houses, from organizations, from
cinemas, and from the innumerable circumstances outwardly thrust
upon us. We think we shall be
simple by withdrawing. A great many saints, a great many teachers,
have renounced the world;
and it seems to me that such a renunciation on the part of any of
us does not solve the problem.
Simplicity which is fundamental, real, can only come into being
inwardly; and from that there is an
outward expression. How to be simple, then, is the problem;
because that simplicity makes one
more and more sensitive. A sensitive mind, a sensitive heart, is
essential, for then it is capable of
quick perception, quick reception.
One can be inwardly simple, surely, only by understanding the
innumerable impediments,
attachments, fears, in which one is held. But most of us like to
be held - by people, by possessions,
48
CHAPTER 12. CHAPTER 11 ’SIMPLICITY’
by ideas. We like to be prisoners. Inwardly we are prisoners,
though outwardly we seem to be
very simple. Inwardly we are prisoners to our desires, to our
wants, to our ideals, to innumerable
motivations. Simplicity cannot be found unless one is free
inwardly. Therefore it must begin inwardly,
not outwardly.
There is an extraordinary freedom when one understands the whole
process of belief, why the
mind is attached to a belief. When there is freedom from beliefs,
there is simplicity. But that
simplicity requires intelligence, and to be intelligent one must
be aware of one’s own impediments.
To be aware, one must be constantly on the watch, not established
in any particular groove, in any
particular pattern of thought or action. After all, what one is
inwardly does affect the outer. Society, or
any form of action, is the projection of ourselves, and without
transforming inwardly mere legislation
has very little significance outwardly; it may bring about certain
reforms, certain adjustments, but
what one is inwardly always overcomes the outer. If one is
inwardly greedy, ambitious, pursuing
certain ideals, that inward complexity does eventually upset,
overthrow outward society, however
carefully planned it may be.
Therefore one must begin within - not exclusively, not rejecting
the outer. You come to the inner,
surely, by understanding the outer, by finding out how the
conflict, the struggle, the pain, exists
outwardly; as one investigates it more and more, naturally one
comes into the psychological states
which produce the outward conflicts and miseries. The outward
expression is only an indication of
our inward state, but to understand the inward state one must
approach through the outer. Most of us
do that. In understanding the inner - not exclusively, not by
rejecting the outer, but by understanding
the outer and so coming upon the inner - we will find that, as we
proceed to investigate the inward
complexities of our being, we become more and more sensitive,
free. It is this inward simplicity
that is so essential, because that simplicity creates sensitivity.
A mind that is not sensitive, not
alert, not aware, is incapable of any receptivity, any creative
action. Conformity as a means of
making ourselves simple really makes the mind and heart dull,
insensitive. Any form of authoritarian
compulsion, imposed by the government, by oneself, by the ideal of
achievement, and so on -
any form of conformity must make for insensitivity, for not being
simple inwardly. Outwardly you
may conform and give the appearance of simplicity, as so many
religious people do. They practise
various disciplines, join various organizations, meditate in a
particular fashion, and so on - all giving
an appearance of simplicity, but such conformity does not make for
simplicity. Compulsion of any
kind can never lead to simplicity. On the contrary, the more you
suppress, the more you substitute,
the more you sublimate, the less there is simplicity, but the more
you understand the process of
sublimation, suppression, substitution, the greater the
possibility of being simple.
Our problems - social, environmental, political, religious - are
so complex that we can solve them
only by being simple, not by becoming extraordinarily erudite and
clever. A simple person sees much
more directly, has a more direct experience, than the complex
person. Our minds are so crowded
with an infinite knowledge of facts, of what others have said,
that we have become incapable of being
simple and having direct experience ourselves. These problems
demand a new approach; and they
can be so approached only when we are simple, inwardly really
simple. That simplicity comes only
through self-knowledge, through understanding ourselves; the ways
of our thinking and feeling; the
movements of our thoughts; our responses; how we conform, through
fear, to public opinion, to what
others say, what the Buddha, the Christ, the great saints have
said - all of which indicates our nature
to conform, to be safe, to be secure. When one is seeking
security, one is obviously in a state of
fear and therefore there is no simplicity.
The First And Last Freedom 49 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 12. CHAPTER 11 ’SIMPLICITY’
Without being simple, one cannot be sensitive - to the trees, to
the birds, to the mountains, to the
wind, to all the things which are going on about us in the world;
if one is not simple one cannot
be sensitive to the inward intimation of things. Most of us live
so superficially, on the upper level
of our consciousness; there we try to be thoughtful or
intelligent, which is synonymous with being
religious; there we try to make our minds simple, through
compulsion, through discipline. But that
is not simplicity. When we force the upper mind to be simple, such
compulsion only hardens the
mind, does not make the mind supple, clear, quick. To be simple in
the whole, total process of our
consciousness is extremely arduous; because there must be no
inward reservation, there must be
an eagerness to find out, to inquire into the process of our
being, which means to be awake to every
intimation, to every hint; to be aware of our fears, of our hopes,
and to investigate and to be free
of them more and more and more. Only then, when the mind and the
heart are really simple, not
encrusted, are we able to solve the many problems that confront
us.
Knowledge is not going to solve our problems. You may know, for
example, that there is
reincarnation, that there is a continuity after death. You may
know, I don’t say you do; or you may
be convinced of it. But that does not solve the problem. Death
cannot be shelved by your theory,
or by information, or by conviction. It is much more mysterious,
much deeper, much more creative
than that.
One must have the capacity to investigate all these things anew;
because it is only through direct
experience that our problems are solved, and to have direct experience
there must be simplicity,
which means there must be sensitivity. A mind is made dull by the
weight of knowledge. A mind is
made dull by the past, by the future. Only a mind that is capable
of adjusting itself to the present,
continually, from moment to moment, can meet the powerful
influences and pressures constantly
put upon us by our environment.
Thus a religious man is not really one who puts on a robe or a
loincloth, or lives on one meal a day,
or has taken innumerable vows to be this and not to be that, but
is he who is inwardly simple, who
is not becoming anything. Such a mind is capable of extraordinary
receptivity, because there is no
barrier, there is no fear, there is no going towards something;
therefore it is capable of receiving
grace, God, truth, or what you will. But a mind that is pursuing
reality is not a simple mind. A
mind that is seeking out, searching, groping, agitated, is not a
simple mind. A mind that conforms
to any pattern of authority, inward or outward, cannot be
sensitive. And it is only when a mind is
really sensitive, alert, aware of all its own happenings,
responses, thoughts, when it is no longer
becoming, is no longer shaping itself to be something - only then
is it capable of receiving that which
is truth. It is only then that there can be happiness, for
happiness is not an end - it is the result of
reality. When the mind and the heart have become simple and
therefore sensitive - not through any
form of compulsion, direction, or imposition - then we shall see
that our problems can be tackled
very simply. However complex our problems, we shall be able to
approach them freshly and see
them differently. That is what is wanted at the present time:
people who are capable of meeting this
outward confusion, turmoil, antagonism anew, creatively, simply -
not with theories nor formulas,
either of the left or of the right. You cannot meet it anew if you
are not simple.
A problem can be solved only when we approach it thus. We cannot
approach it anew if we are
thinking in terms of certain patterns of thought, religious,
political or otherwise. So we must be free
of all these things, to be simple. That is why it is so important
to be aware, to have the capacity
to understand the process of our own thinking, to be cognizant of
ourselves totally; from that there
The First And Last Freedom 50 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 12. CHAPTER 11 ’SIMPLICITY’
comes a simplicity, there comes a humility which is not a virtue
or a practice. Humility that is gained
ceases to be humility. A mind that makes itself humble is no
longer a humble mind. It is only when
one has humility, not a cultivated humility, that one is able to
meet the things of life that are so
pressing, because then one is not important, one doesn’t look
through one’s own pressures and
sense of importance; one looks at the problem for itself and then
one is able to solve it.
The First And Last Freedom 51 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 12 ’AWARENESS’
TO KNOW OURSELVES means to know our relationship with the world -
not only with the world of
ideas and people, but also with nature, with the things we
possess. That is our life - life being
relationship to the whole. Does the understanding of that relationship
demand specialization?
Obviously not. What it demands is awareness to meet life as a
whole. How is one to be aware?
That is our problem. How is one to have that awareness - if I may
use this word without making
it mean specialization? How is one to be capable of meeting life
as a whole? - which means not
only personal relationship with your neighbour but also with
nature, with the things that you possess,
with ideas, and with the things that the mind manufactures as
illusion, desire and so on. How is one
to be aware of this whole process of relationship? Surely that is
our life, is it not? There is no life
without relationship; and to understand this relationship does not
mean isolation. On the contrary, it
demands a full recognition or awareness of the total process of
relationship.
How is one to be aware? How are we aware of anything? How are you
aware of your relationship
with a person? How are you aware of the trees, the call of a bird?
How are you aware of your
reactions when you read a newspaper? Are we aware of the
superficial responses of the mind, as
well as the inner responses? How are we aware of anything? First
we are aware, are we not?, of
a response to a stimulus, which is an obvious fact; I see the
trees, and there is a response, then
sensation, contact, identification and desire. That is the
ordinary process, isn’t it? We can observe
what actually takes place, without studying any books. So through
identification you have pleasure
and pain. And our ‘capacity’ is this concern with pleasure and the
avoidance of pain, is it not? If
you are interested in something, if it gives you pleasure, there
is ‘capacity’ immediately; there is
an awareness of that fact immediately; and if it is painful the ‘capacity’
is developed to avoid it.
So long as we are looking to ‘capacity’ to understand ourselves, I
think we shall fail; because the
understanding of ourselves does not depend on capacity. It is not
a technique that you develop,
cultivate and increase through time, through constantly
sharpening. This awareness of oneself can
52
CHAPTER 13. CHAPTER 12 ’AWARENESS’
be tested, surely, in the action of relationship; it can be tested
in the way we talk, the way we behave.
Watch yourself without any identification, without any comparison,
without any condemnation; just
watch, and you will see an extraordinary thing taking place. You
not only put an end to an activity
which is unconscious - because most of our activities are unconscious
- you not only bring that to
an end, but, further, you are aware of the motives of that action,
without inqui1y, without digging into
it.
When you are aware, you see the whole process of your thinking and
action; but it can happen
only when there is no condemnation. When I condemn something, I do
not understand it, and it is
one way of avoiding any kind of understanding. I think most of us
do that purposely; we condemn
immediately and we think we have understood. If we do not condemn
but regard it, are aware of
it, then the content, the significance of that action begins to
open up. Experiment with this and you
will see for yourself. Just be aware - without any sense of
justification - which may appear rather
negative but is not negative. On the contrary, it has the quality
of passivity which is direct action;
and you will discover this, if you experiment with it.
After all, if you want to understand something, you have to be in
a passive mood, do you not? You
cannot keep on thinking about it, speculating about it or
questioning it. You have to be sensitive
enough to receive the content of it. It is like being a sensitive
photographic plate. If I want to
understand you, I have to be passively aware; then you begin to
tell me all your story. Surely that
is not a question of capacity or specialization. In that process
we begin to understand ourselves -
not only the superficial layers of our consciousness, but the
deeper, which is much more important;
because there are all our motives and intentions, our hidden,
confused demands, anxieties, fears,
appetites. Outwardly we may have them all under control but
inwardly they are boiling. Until those
have been completely understood through awareness, obviously there
cannot be freedom, there
cannot be happiness, there is no intelligence.
Is intelligence a matter of specialization? - intelligence being
the total awareness of our process.
And is that intelligence to be cultivated through any form of
specialization? Because that is what is
happening, is it not? The priest, the doctor, the engineer, the
industrialist, the business man, the
professor - we have the mentality of all that specialization.
To realize the highest form of intelligence - which is truth,
which is God, which cannot be described
- to realize that, we think we have to make ourselves specialists.
We study, we grope, we search
out; and, with the mentality of the specialist or looking to the
specialist, we study ourselves in order
to develop a capacity which will help to unravel our conflicts,
our miseries.
Our problem is, if we are at all aware, whether the conflicts and
the miseries and the sorrows of our
daily existence can be solved by another; and if they cannot, how
is it possible for us to tackle them?
To understand a problem obviously requires a certain intelligence,
and that intelligence cannot be
derived from or cultivated through specialization. It comes into
being only when we are passively
aware of the whole process of our consciousness, which is to be
aware of ourselves without choice,
without choosing what is right and what is wrong. When you are
passively aware, you will see that
out of that passivity - which is not idleness, which is not sleep,
but extreme alertness - the problem
has quite a different significance; which means there is no longer
identification with the problem
and therefore there is no judgement and hence the problem begins
to reveal its content. If you
are able to do that constantly, continuously, then every problem
can be solved fundamentally, not
The First And Last Freedom 53 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 13. CHAPTER 12 ’AWARENESS’
superficially. That is the difficulty, because most of us are
incapable of being passively aware, letting
the problem tell the story without our interpreting it. We do not
know how to look at a problem
dispassionately. We are not capable of it, unfortunately, because
we want a result from the problem,
we want an answer, we are looking to an end; or we try to
translate the problem according to our
pleasure or pain; or we have an answer already on how to deal with
the problem. Therefore we
approach a problem, which is always new, with the old pattern. The
challenge is always the new,
but our response is always the old; and our difficulty is to meet
the challenge adequately, that is
fully. The problem is always a problem of relationship - with
things, with people or with ideas; there
is no other problem; and to meet the problem of relationship, with
its constantly varying demands
- to meet it rightly, to meet it adequately - one has to be aware
passively. This passivity is not a
question of determination, of will, of discipline; to be aware
that we are not passive is the beginning.
To be aware that we want a particular answer to a particular
problem - surely that is the beginning:
to know ourselves in relationship to the problem and how we deal
with the problem. Then as we
begin to know ourselves in relationship to the problem - how we
respond, what are our various
prejudices, demands, pursuits, in meeting that problem - this
awareness will reveal the process of
our own thinking, of our own inward nature; and in that there is a
release.
What is important, surely, is to be aware without choice, because
choice brings about conflict. The
chooser is in confusion, therefore he chooses; if he is not in
confusion, there is no choice. Only the
person who is confused chooses what he shall do or shall not do.
The man who is clear and simple
does not choose; what is, is. Action based on an idea is obviously
the action of choice and such
action is not liberating; on the contrary, it only creates further
resistance, further conflict, according
to that conditioned thinking.
The important thing, therefore, is to be aware from moment to
moment without accumulating the
experience which awareness brings; because, the moment you
accumulate, you are aware only
according to that accumulation, according to that pattern,
according to that experience. That is your
awareness is conditioned by your accumulation and therefore there
is no longer observation but
merely translation. Where there is translation, there is choice,
and choice creates conflict; in conflict
there can be no understanding.
Life is a matter of relationship; and to understand that
relationship, which is not static, there must be
an awareness which is pliable, an awareness which is alertly
passive, not aggressively active. As
I said, this passive awareness does not come through any form of
discipline, through any practice.
It is to be just aware, from moment to moment, of our thinking and
feeling, not only when we are
awake; for we shall see, as we go into it more deeply, that we
begin to dream, that we begin to
throw up all kinds of symbols which we translate as dreams. Thus
we open the door into the hidden,
which becomes the known; but to find the unknown, we must go
beyond the door - surely, that is our
difficulty. Reality is not a thing which is knowable by the mind,
because the mind is the result of the
known, of the past; therefore the mind must understand itself and
its functioning, its truth, and only
then is it possible for the unknown to be.
The First And Last Freedom 54 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 13 ’DESIRE’
FOR MOST OF us, desire is quite a problem: the desire for
property, for position, for power,
for comfort, for immortality, for continuity, the desire to be
loved, to have something permanent,
satisfying, lasting, something which is beyond time. Now, what is
desire? What is this thing that is
urging, compelling us? I am not suggesting that we should be
satisfied with what we have or with
what we are, which is merely the opposite of what we want. We are
trying to see what desire is,
and if we can go into it tentatively, hesitantly, I think we shall
bring about a transformation which is
not a mere substitution of one object of desire for another object
of desire. This is generally what
we mean by ‘change’, is it not? Being dissatisfied with one
particular object of desire, we find a
substitute for it. We are everlastingly moving from one object of
desire to another which we consider
to be higher, nobler, more refined; but, however refined, desire
is still desire, and in this movement
of desire there is endless struggle, the conflict of the opposites.
Is it not, therefore, important to find out what is desire and
whether it can be transformed? What is
desire? Is it not the symbol and its sensation? Desire is
sensation with the object of its attainment.
Is there desire without a symbol and its sensation? Obviously not.
The symbol may be a picture,
a person, a word, a name, an image, an idea which gives me a
sensation, which makes me feel
that I like or dislike it; if the sensation is pleasurable, I want
to attain, to possess, to hold on to its
symbol and continue in that pleasure. From time to time, according
to my inclinations and intensities,
I change the picture, the image, the object. With one form of
pleasure I am fed up, tired, bored, so I
seek a new sensation, a new idea, a new symbol. I reject the old
sensation and take on a new one,
with new words, new significances, new experiences. I resist the
old and yield to the new which I
consider to be higher, nobler, more satisfying. Thus in desire
there is a resistance and a yielding,
which involves temptation; and of course in yielding to a
particular symbol of desire there is always
the fear of frustration.
55
CHAPTER 14. CHAPTER 13 ’DESIRE’
If I observe the whole process of desire in myself I see that
there is always an object towards
which my mind is directed for further sensation, and that in this
process there is involved resistance,
temptation and discipline. There is perception, sensation, contact
and desire, and the mind becomes
the mechanical instrument of this process, in which symbols words,
objects are the centre round
which all desire, all pursuits, all ambitions are built; that
centre is the ‘me’. Can I dissolve that centre
of desire - not one particular desire, one particular appetite or
craving, but the whole structure of
desire, of longing, hoping, in which there is always the fear of
frustration? The more I am frustrated,
the more strength I give to the ‘me’. So long as there is hoping,
longing, there is always the
background of fear, which again strengthens that centre. And
revolution is possible only at that
centre, not on the surface, which is merely a process of
distraction, a superficial change leading to
mischievous action.
When I am aware of this whole structure of desire, I see how my
mind has become a dead centre,
a mechanical process of memory. Having tired of one desire, I
automatically want to fulfil myself
in another. My mind is always experiencing in terms of sensation,
it is the instrument of sensation.
Being bored with a particular sensation, I seek a new sensation,
which may be what I call the
realization of God; but it is still sensation. I have had enough
of this world and its travail and I want
peace, the peace that is everlasting; so I meditate, control, I
shape my mind in order to experience
that peace. The experiencing of that peace is still sensation. So
my mind is the mechanical
instrument of sensation, of memory, a dead centre from which I
act, think. The objects I pursue
are the projections of the mind as symbols from which it derives
sensations. The word ‘God’, the
word ‘love’, the word ‘communism’, the word ‘democracy’, the word ‘nationalism’
- these are all
symbols which give sensations to the mind, and therefore the mind
clings to them. As you and I
know, every sensation comes to an end, and so we proceed from one
sensation to another; and
every sensation strengthens the habit of seeking further
sensation. Thus the mind becomes merely
an instrument of sensation and memory, and in that process we are
caught. So long as the mind
is seeking further experience it can only think in terms of
sensation; and any experience that may
be spontaneous, creative, vital, strikingly new, it immediately
reduces to sensation and pursues that
sensation, which then becomes a memory. Therefore the experience
is dead and the mind becomes
merely a stagnant pool of the past.
If we have gone into it at all deeply we are familiar with this
process; and we seem to be incapable of
going beyond. We want to go beyond, because we are tired of this
endless routine, this mechanical
pursuit of sensation; so the mind projects the idea of truth, or
God; it dreams of‘ a vital change
and of playing a principal part in that change, and so on and on
and on. Hence there is never a
creative state. In myself I see this process of desire going on,
which is mechanical, repetitive, which
holds the mind in a process of routine and makes of it a dead
centre of the past in which there is no
creative spontaneity. Also there are sudden moments of creation,
of that which is not of the mind,
which is not of memory, which is not of sensation or of desire.
Our problem, therefore, is to understand desire - not how far it
should go or where it should come
to an end, but to understand the whole process of desire, the
cravings, the longings, the burning
appetites. Most of us think that possessing very little indicates
freedom from desire - and how we
worship those who have but few things! A loincloth, a robe,
symbolizes our desire to be free from
desire; but that again is a very superficial reaction. Why begin
at the superficial level of giving
up outward possessions when your mind is crippled with innumerable
wants, innumerable desires,
beliefs, struggles? Surely it is there that the revolution must
take place, not in how much you
The First And Last Freedom 56 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 14. CHAPTER 13 ’DESIRE’
possess or what clothes you wear or how many meals you eat. But we
are impressed by these
things because our minds are very superficial.
Your problem and my problem is to see whether the mind can ever be
free from desire, from
sensation. Surely creation has nothing to do with sensation;
reality, God, or what you will, is not
a state which can be experienced as sensation. When you have an
experience, what happens? It
has given you a certain sensation, a feeling of elation or
depression. Naturally, you try to avoid, put
aside, the state of depression; but if it is a joy, a feeling of
elation, you pursue it. Your experience
has produced a pleasurable sensation and you want more of it; and
the ‘more’ strengthens the dead
centre of the mind, which is ever craving further experience.
Hence the mind cannot experience
anything new, it is incapable of experiencing anything new,
because its approach is always through
memory, through recognition; and that which is recognized through
memory is not truth, creation,
reality. Such a mind cannot experience reality; it can only
experience sensation, and creation is not
sensation, it is something that is everlastingly new from moment
to moment.
Now I realize the state of my own mind; I see that it is the
instrument of sensation and desire,
or rather that it is sensation and desire, and that it is
mechanically caught up in routine. Such a
mind is incapable of ever receiving or feeling out the new; for
the new must obviously be something
beyond sensation, which is always the old. So, this mechanical
process with its sensations has to
come to an end, has it not? The wanting more, the pursuit of
symbols, words, images, with their
sensation - all that has to come to an end. Only then is it
possible for the mind to be in that state
of creativeness in which the new can always come into being. If
you will understand without being
mesmerized by words, by habits, by ideas, and see how important it
is to have the new constantly
impinging on the mind, then, perhaps, you will understand the
process of desire, the routine, the
boredom, the constant craving for experience. Then I think you
will begin to see that desire has very
little significance in life for a man who is really seeking.
Obviously there are certain physical needs:
food, clothing, shelter, and all the rest of it. But they never
become psychological appetites, things
on which the mind builds itself as a centre of desire. Beyond the
physical needs, any form of desire
- for greatness, for truth, for virtue - becomes a psychological
process by which the mind builds the
idea of the ‘me’ and strengthens itself at the centre.
When you see this process, when you are really aware of it without
opposition, without a sense of
temptation, without resistance, without justifying or judging it,
then you will discover that the mind
is capable of receiving the new and that the new is never a
sensation; therefore it can never be
recognized, re-experienced. It is a state of being in which
creativeness comes without invitation,
without memory; and that is reality.
The First And Last Freedom 57 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 14 ’RELATIONSHIP AND ISOLATION’
LIFE IS EXPERIENCE, experience in relationship. One cannot live in
isolation, so life is relationship
and relationship is action. And how can one have that capacity for
understanding relationship which
is life? Does not relationship mean not only communion with people
but intimacy with things and
ideas? Life is relationship, which is expressed through contact
with things, with people and with
ideas. In understanding relationship we shall have capacity to
meet life fully, adequately. So our
problem is not capacity - for capacity is not independent of
relationship - but rather the understanding
of relationship, which will naturally produce the capacity for
quick pliability, for quick adjustment, for
quick response.
Relationship, surely, is the mirror in which you discover
yourself. Without relationship you are not;
to be is to be related; to be related is existence. You exist only
in relationship; otherwise you do not
exist, existence has no meaning. It is not because you think you
are that you come into existence.
You exist because you are related; and it is the lack of
understanding of relationship that causes
conflict.
Now there is no understanding of relationship, because we use
relationship merely as a means of
furthering achievement, furthering transformation, furthering
becoming. But relationship is a means
of self-discovery, because relationship is to be; it is existence.
Without relationship, I am not. To
understand myself, I must understand relationship. Relationship is
a mirror in which I can see myself.
That mirror can either be distorted, or it can be ‘as is’,
reflecting that which is. But most of us see
in relationship, in that mirror, things we would rather see; we do
not see what is. We would rather
idealize, escape, we would rather live in the future than
understand that relationship in the immediate
present.
Now if we examine our life, our relationship with another, we
shall see that it is a process of isolation.
We are really not concerned with another; though we talk a great
deal about it, actually we are
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CHAPTER 15. CHAPTER 14 ’RELATIONSHIP AND ISOLATION’
not concerned. We are related to someone only so long as that
relationship gratifies us, so long
as it gives us a refuge, so long as it satisfies us. But the
moment there is a disturbance in the
relationship which produces discomfort in ourselves, we discard
that relationship. In other words,
there is relationship only so long as we are gratified. This may
sound harsh, but if you really examine
your life very closely you will see it is a fact; and to avoid a
fact is to live in ignorance, which can never
produce right relationship. If we look into our lives and observe
relationship, we see it is a process of
building resistance against another, a wall over which we look and
observe the other; but we always
retain the wall and remain behind it, whether it be a
psychological wall, a material wall, an economic
wall or a national wall. So long as we live in isolation, behind a
wall, there is no relationship with
another; and we live enclosed because it is much more gratifying,
we think it is much more secure.
The world is so disruptive, there is so much sorrow, so much pain,
war, destruction, misery, that we
want to escape and live within the walls of security of our own
psychological being. So, relationship
with most of us is actually a process of isolation, and obviously
such relationship builds a society
which is also isolating. That is exactly what is happening
throughout the world: you remain in your
isolation and stretch your hand over the wall, calling it
nationalism, brotherhood or what you will, but
actually sovereign governments, armies, continue. Still clinging
to your own limitations, you think you
can create world unity, world peace - which is impossible. So long
as you have a frontier, whether
national, economic, religious or social, it is an obvious fact
that there cannot be peace in the world.
The process of isolation is a process of the search for power;
whether one is seeking power
individually or for a racial or national group there must be
isolation, because the very desire for
power, for position, is separatism. After all, that is what each
one wants, is it not? He wants a
powerful position in which he can dominate, whether at home, in
the office, or in a bureaucratic
regime. Each one is seeking power and in seeking power he will
establish a society which is based
on power, military, industrial, economic, and so on - which again
is obvious. Is not the desire
for power in its very nature isolating? I think it is very
important to understand this, because the
man who wants a peaceful world, a world in which there are no
wars, no appalling destruction, no
catastrophic misery on an immeasurable scale must understand this
fundamental question, must he
not? A man who is affectionate, who is kindly, has no sense of
power, and therefore such a man is
not bound to any nationality, to any flag. He has no flag.
There is no such thing as living in isolation - no country, no
people, no individual, can live in isolation;
yet, because you are seeking power in so many different ways, you
breed isolation. The nationalist
is a curse because through his very nationalistic, patriotic
spirit, he is creating a wall of isolation.
He is so identified with his country that he builds a wall against
another. What happens when you
build a wall against something? That something is constantly
beating against your wall. When you
resist something, the very resistance indicates that you are in
conflict with the other. So nationalism,
which is a process of isolation, which is the outcome of the
search for power, cannot bring about
peace in the world. The man who is a nationalist and talks of
brotherhood is telling a lie; he is living
in a state of contradiction.
Can one live in the world without the desire for power, for
position, for authority? Obviously one
can. One does it when one does not identify oneself with something
greater. This identification
with something greater - the party, the country, the race, the
religion, God - is the search for power.
Because you in yourself are empty, dull, weak, you like to
identify yourself with something greater.
That des1re to identify yourself with something greater is the
desire for power.
Relationship is a process of self-revelation, and, without knowing
oneself, the ways of one’s own
The First And Last Freedom 59 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 15. CHAPTER 14 ’RELATIONSHIP AND ISOLATION’
mind and heart, merely to establish an outward order, a system, a
cunning formula, has very little
meaning. What is important is to understand oneself in
relationship with another. Then relationship
becomes not a process of isolation but a movement in which you
discover your own motives, your
own thoughts, your own pursuits; and that very discovery is the
beginning of liberation, the beginning
of transformation.
The First And Last Freedom 60 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 15 ’THE THINKER AND THE THOUGHT’
IN ALL OUR experiences, there is always the experiencer, the
observer, who is gathering to himself
more and more or denying himself. Is that not a wrong process and
is that not a pursuit which does
not bring about the creative state? If it is a wrong process, can
we wipe it out completely and put it
aside? That can come about only when I experience, not as a
thinker experiences, but when I am
aware of the false process and see that there is only a state in
which the thinker is the thought.
So long as I am experiencing, so long as I am becoming, there must
be this dualistic action; there
must be the thinker and the thought, two separate processes at
work; there is no integration, there
is always a centre which is operating through the will of action
to be or not to be - collectively,
individually, nationally and so on. Universally, this is the
process. So long as effort is divided into the
experiencer and the experience, there must be deterioration.
Integration is only possible when the
thinker is no longer the observer. That is, we know at present
there are the thinker and the thought,
the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the
experienced; there are two different states.
Our effort is to bridge the two.
The will of action is always dualistic. Is it possible to go
beyond this will which is separative and
discover a state in which this dualistic action is not? That can
only be found when we directly
experience the state in which the thinker is the thought. We now
think the thought is separate from
the thinker; but is that so? We would like to think it is, because
then the thinker can explain matters
through his thought. The effort of the thinker is to become more
or become less; and therefore, in
that struggle, in that action of the will, in ‘becoming’, there is
always the deteriorating factor; we are
pursuing a false process and not a true process.
Is there a division between the thinker and the thought? So long
as they are separate, divided, our
effort is wasted; we are pursuing a false process which is
destructive and which is the deteriorating
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CHAPTER 16. CHAPTER 15 ’THE THINKER AND THE THOUGHT’
factor. We think the thinker is separate from his thought. When I
find that I am greedy, possessive,
brutal, I think I should not be all this. The thinker then tries
to alter his thoughts and therefore
effort is made to ‘become; in that process of effort he pursues
the false illusion that there are two
separate processes, whereas there is only one process. I think therein
lies the fundamental factor
of deterioration.
Is it possible to experience that state when there is only one
entity and not two separate processes,
the experiencer and the experience? Then perhaps we shall find out
what it is to be creative, and
what the state is in which there is no deterioration at any time,
in whatever relationship man may be.
I am greedy. I and greed are not two different states; there is
only one thing and that is greed. If I
am aware that I am greedy, what happens? I make an effort not to
be greedy, either for sociological
reasons or for religious reasons; that effort will always be in a
small limited circle; I may extend the
circle but it is always limited. Therefore the deteriorating
factor is there. But when I look a little more
deeply and closely, I see that the maker of effort is the cause of
greed and he is greed itself; and I
also see that there is no ‘me’ and greed, existing separately, but
that there is only greed. If I realize
that I am greedy, that there is not the observer who is greedy but
I am myself greed, then our whole
question is entirely different; our response to it is entirely
different; then our effort is not destructive.
What will you do when your whole being is greed, when whatever
action you do is greed?
Unfortunately, we don’t think along those lines. There is the ‘me’,
the superior entity, the soldier
who is controlling, dominating. To me that process is destructive.
It is an illusion and we know
why we do it. I divide myself into the high and the low in order
to continue. If there is only greed,
completely, not ‘I’ operating greed, but I am entirely greed, then
what happens? Surely then there is
a different process at work altogether, a different problem comes
into being. It is that problem which
is creative, in which there is no sense of ‘I’ dominating,
becoming, positively or negatively. We must
come to that state if we would be creative. In that state, there
is no maker of effort. It is not a matter
of verbalizing or of trying to find out what that state is; if you
set about it in that way you will lose and
you will never find. What is important is to see that the maker of
effort and the object towards which
he is making effort are the same. That requires enormously great
understanding, watchfulness, to
see how the mind divides itself into the high and the low - the
high being the security, the permanent
entity - but still remaining a process of thought and therefore of
time. If we can understand this as
direct experience, then you will see that quite a different factor
comes into being.
The First And Last Freedom 62 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 16 ’CAN THINKING SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS?’
THOUGHT HAS NOT solved our problems and I don’t think it ever will.
We have relied on the intellect
to show us the way out of our complexity. The more cunning, the
more hideous, the more subtle the
intellect is, the greater the variety of systems, of theories, of
ideas. And ideas do not solve any of
our human problems; they never have and they never will. The mind
is not the solution; the way of
thought is obviously not the way out of our difficulty. It seems
to me that we should first understand
this process of thinking, and perhaps be able to go beyond - for
when thought ceases, perhaps we
shall be able to find a way which will help us to solve our
problems, not only the individual but also
the collective.
Thinking has not solved our problems. The clever ones, the
philosophers, the scholars, the political
leaders, have not really solved any of our human problems - which
are the relationship between
you and another, between you and myself. So far we have used the
mind, the intellect, to help
us investigate the problem and thereby are hoping to find a
solution. Can thought ever dissolve
our problems? Is not thought, unless it is in the laboratory or on
the drawing board, always selfprotecting,
self-perpetuating, conditioned? Is not its activity self-centred?
And can such thought
ever resolve any of the problems which thought itself has created?
Can the mind, which has created
the problems, resolve those things that it has itself brought
forth?
Surely thinking is a reaction. If I ask you a question, you
respond to it - you respond according to
your memory, to your prejudices, to your upbringing, to the
climate, to the whole background of your
conditioning; you reply accordingly, you think accordingly. The
centre of this background is the ‘me’
in the process of action. So long as that background is not
understood, so long as that thought
process, that self which creates the problem, is not understood
and put an end to, we are bound to
have conflict, within and without, in thought, in emotion, in
action. No solution of any kind, however
clever, however well thought out, can ever put an end to the
conflict between man and man, between
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CHAPTER 17. CHAPTER 16 ’CAN THINKING SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS?’
you and me. Realizing this, being aware of how thought springs up
and from what source, then we
ask, ”Can thought ever come to an end?”
That is one of the problems, is it not? Can thought resolve our
problems? By thinking over the
problem, have you resolved it? Any kind of problem - economic,
social, religious - has it ever been
really solved by thinking? In your daily life, the more you think
about a problem, the more complex,
the more irresolute, the more uncertain it becomes. Is that not
so? - in our actual, daily life? You
may, in thinking out certain facets of the problem, see more
clearly another person’s point of view,
but thought cannot see the completeness and fullness of the
problem - it can only see partially and
a partial answer is not a complete answer, therefore it is not a
solution.
The more we think over a problem, the more we investigate, analyse
and discuss it, the more
complex it becomes. So is it possible to look at the problem
comprehensively, wholly? How is this
possible? Because that, it seems to me, is our major difficulty.
Our problems are being multiplied
- there is imminent danger of war, there is every kind of
disturbance in our relationships - and how
can we understand all that comprehensively, as a whole? Obviously
it can be solved only when
we can look at it as a whole - not in compartments, not divided.
When is that possible? Surely
it is only possible when the process of thinking - which has its
source in the ‘me’, the self, in the
background of tradition, of conditioning, of prejudice, of hope,
of despair - has come to an end. Can
we understand this self, not by analysing, but by seeing the thing
as it is, being aware of it as a
fact and not as a theory? - not seeking to dissolve the self in
order to achieve a result but seeing
the activity of the self, the ‘me’, constantly in action? Can we
look at it, without any movement to
destroy or to encourage? That is the problem, is it not? If, in
each one of us, the centre of the ‘me’ is
non-existent, with its desire for power, position, authority,
continuance, self-preservation, surely our
problems will come to an end!
The self is a problem that thought cannot resolve. There must be
an awareness which is not of
thought. To be aware, without condemnation or justification, of
the activities of the self - just to be
aware - is sufficient. If you are aware in order to find out how
to resolve the problem, in order to
transform it, in order to produce a result, then it is still
within the field of the self, of the ‘me’. So
long as we are seeking a result, whether through analysis, through
awareness, through constant
examination of every thought, we are still within the field of
thought, which is within the field of the
‘me’, of the ‘I’, of the ego, or what you will.
As long as the activity of the mind exists, surely there can be no
love. When there is love, we shall
have no social problems. But love is not something to be acquired.
The mind can seek to acquire it,
like a new thought, a new gadget, a new way of thinking; but the
mind cannot be in a state of love
so long as thought is acquiring love. So long as the mind is
seeking to be in a state of non-greed,
surely it is still greedy, is it not? Similarly, so long as the
mind wishes, desires, and practises in order
to be in a state in which there is love, surely it denies that
state, does it not?
Seeing this problem, this complex problem of living, and being
aware of the process of our own
thinking and realizing that it actually leads nowhere - when we
deeply realize that, then surely there is
a state of intelligence which is not individual or collective.
Then the problem of the relationship of the
individual to society, of the individual to the community, of the
individual to reality, ceases; because
then there is only intelligence, which is neither personal nor
impersonal. It is this intelligence alone,
I feel, that can solve our immense problems. That cannot be a
result; it comes into being only when
The First And Last Freedom 64 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 17. CHAPTER 16 ’CAN THINKING SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS?’
we understand this whole total process of thinking, not only at
the conscious level but also at the
deeper, hidden levels of consciousness.
To understand any of these problems we have to have a very quiet
mind, a very still mind, so that
the mind can look at the problem without interposing ideas or
theories, without any distraction. That
is one of our difficulties - because thought has become a
distraction. When I want to understand,
look at something, I don’t have to think about it - I look at it.
The moment I begin to think, to have
ideas, opinions about it, I am already in a state of distraction,
looking away from the thing which I
must understand. So thought, when you have a problem, becomes a
distraction - thought being an
idea, opinion, judgement, comparison - which prevents us from
looking and thereby understanding
and resolving the problem. Unfortunately for most of us thought
has become so important. You say,
”How can I exist, be, without thinking? How can I have a blank
mind ?” To have a blank mind is to be
in a state of stupor, idiocy or what you will, and your
instinctive reaction is to reject it. But surely a
mind that is very quiet, a mind that is not distracted by its own
thought, a mind that is open, can look
at the problem very directly and very simply. And it is this
capacity to look without any distraction at
our problems that is the only solution. For that there must be a
quiet, tranquil mind.
Such a mind is not a result, is not an end product of a practice,
of meditation, of control. It comes
into being through no form of discipline or compulsion or
sublimation, without any effort of the ‘me’,
of thought; it comes into being when I understand the whole
process of thinking - when I can see a
fact without any distraction. In that state of tranquillity of a
mind that is really still there is love. And
it is love alone that can solve all our human problems.
The First And Last Freedom 65 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 17 ’THE FUNCTION OF THE MIND’
WHEN YOU OBSERVE your own mind you are observing not only the
so-called upper levels of
the mind but also watching the unconscious; you are seeing what
the mind actually does, are you
not? That is the only way you can investigate. Do not superimpose
what it should do, how it should
think or act and so on; that would amount to making mere
statements. That is if you say the mind
should be this or should not be that, then you stop all
investigation and all thinking; or, if you quote
some high authority, then you equally stop thinking, don’t you? If
you quote Buddha, Christ or XYZ,
there is an end to all pursuit, to all thinking and all
investigation. So one has to guard against that.
You must put aside all these subtleties of the mind if you would
investigate this problem of the self
together with me.
What is the function of the mind? To find that out, you must know
what the mind is actually doing.
What does your mind do? It is all a process of thinking, is it
not? Otherwise, the mind is not there.
So long as the mind is not thinking, consciously or unconsciously,
there is no consciousness. We
have to find out what the mind that we use in our everyday life,
and also the mind of which most of
us are unconscious, does in relation to our problems. We must look
at the mind as it is and not as it
should be.
Now what is mind as it is functioning? It is actually a process of
isolation, is it not? Fundamentally
that is what the process of thought is. It is thinking in an
isolated form, yet remaining collective.
When you observe your own thinking, you will see it is an
isolated, fragmentary process. You
are thinking according to your reactions, the reactions of your
memory of your experience, of your
knowledge, of your belief. You are reacting to all that, aren’t
you? If I say that there must be a
fundamental revolution, you immediately react. You will object to
that word ‘revolution’ if you have
got good investments, spiritual or otherwise. So your reaction is
dependent on your knowledge, on
your belief, on your experience. That is an obvious fact. There
are various forms of reaction. You
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CHAPTER 18. CHAPTER 17 ’THE FUNCTION OF THE MIND’
say ”I must be brotherly”, ”I must co-operate”, ”I must be
friendly”, ‘’I must be kind”, and so on. What
are these? These are all reactions; but the fundamental reaction
of thinking is a process of isolation.
You are watching the process of your own mind, each one of you,
which means watching your own
action, belief, knowledge, experience. All these give security, do
they not? They give security, give
strength to the process of thinking. That process only strengthens
the ‘me’, the mind, the self -
whether you call that self high or low. All our religions, all our
social sanctions, all our laws are for
the support of the individual, the individual self, the separative
action; and in opposition to that there
is the totalitarian state. If you go deeper into the unconscious,
there too it is the same process that
is at work. There, we are the collective influenced by the
environment, by the climate, by the society,
by the father, the mother, the grandfather. There again is the
desire to assert, to dominate as an
individual, as the me.
Is not the function of the mind, as we know it and as we function
daily, a process of isolation? Aren’t
you seeking individual salvation? You are going to be somebody in
the future; or in this very life
you are going to be a great man, a great writer. Our whole
tendency is to be separated. Can the
mind do anything else but that? Is it possible for the mind not to
think separatively, in a self-enclosed
manner, fragmentarily? That is impossible. So we worship the mind;
the mind is extraordinarily
important. Don’t you know, the moment you are a little bit
cunning, a little bit alert, and have a little
accumulated information and knowledge, how important you become in
society? You know how
you worship those who are intellectually superior, the lawyers,
the professors, the orators, the great
writers, the explainers and the expounders! You have cultivated
the intellect and the mind.
The function of the mind is to be separated; otherwise your mind
is not there. Having cultivated
this process for centuries we find we cannot co-operate; we can
only be urged, compelled, driven by
authority, fear, either economic or religious. If that is the
actual state, not only consciously but also at
the deeper levels, in our motives, our intentions, our pursuits,
how can there be co-operation? How
can there be intelligent coming together to do something? As that
is almost impossible, religions and
organized social parties force the individual to certain forms of
discipline. Discipline then becomes
imperative if we want to come together, to do things together.
Until we understand how to transcend this separative thinking,
this process of giving emphasis to
the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’, whether in the collective form or in
individual form, we shall not have peace;
we shall have constant conflict and wars. Our problem is how to
bring an end to the separative
process of thought. Can thought ever destroy the self, thought
being the process of verbalization
and of reaction? Thought is nothing else but reaction; thought is
not creative. Can such thought
put an end to itself? That is what we are trying to find out. When
I think along these lines: ”I must
discipline”, ”I must think more properly”, ”I must be this or that”,
thought is compelling itself, urging
itself, disciplining itself to be something or not to be
something. Is that not a process of isolation? It
is therefore not that integrated intelligence which functions as a
whole, from which alone there can
be co-operation.
How are you to come to the end of thought? Or rather how is
thought, which is isolated, fragmentary
and partial, to come to an end? How do you set about it? Will your
so-called discipline destroy it?
Obviously, you have not succeeded all these long years, otherwise
you would not be here. Please
examine the disciplining process, which is solely a thought
process, in which there is subjection,
repression, control, domination - all affecting the unconscious,
which asserts itself later as you
grow older. Having tried for such a long time to no purpose, you
must have found that discipline
The First And Last Freedom 67 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 18. CHAPTER 17 ’THE FUNCTION OF THE MIND’
is obviously not the process to destroy the self. The self cannot
be destroyed through discipline,
because discipline is a process of strengthening the self. Yet all
your religions support it; all your
meditations, your assertions are based on this. Will knowledge
destroy the self? Will belief destroy
it? In other words, will anything that we are at present doing,
any of the activities in which we are
at present engaged in order to get at the root of the self, will
any of that succeed? Is not all this a
fundamental waste in a thought process which is a process of
isolation, of reaction? What do you
do when you realize fundamentally or deeply that thought cannot
end itself? What happens? Watch
yourself. When you are fully aware of this fact, what happens? You
understand that any reaction is
conditioned and that, through conditioning, there can be no
freedom either at the beginning or at the
end - and freedom is always at the beginning and not at the end.
When you realize that any reaction is a form of conditioning and
therefore gives continuity to the
self in different ways, what actually takes place? You must be
very clear in this matter. Belief,
knowledge, discipline, experience, the whole process of achieving
a result or an end, ambition,
becoming something in this life or in a future life - all these
are a process of isolation, a process
which brings destruction, misery, wars, from which there is no
escape through collective action,
however much you may be threatened with concentration camps and
all the rest of it. Are you aware
of that fact? What is the state of the mind which says ”It is so”,
”That is my problem”, ”That is exactly
where I am”, ”I see what knowledge and discipline can do, what
ambition does”? Surely, if you see
all that, there is already a different process at work. We see the
ways of the intellect but we do not
see the way of love. The way of love is not to be found through
the intellect. The intellect, with all
its ramifications, with all its desires, ambitions, pursuits, must
come to an end for love to come into
existence. Don’t you know that when you love, you co-operate, you
are not thinking of yourself?
That is the highest form of intelligence - not when you love as a
superior entity or when you are in
a good position, which is nothing but fear. When your vested
interests are there, there can be no
love; there is only the process of exploitation, born of fear. So
love can come into being only when
the mind is not there. Therefore you must understand the whole
process of the mind, the function of
the mind.
It is only when we know how to love each other that there can be
co-operation, that there can be
intelligent functioning, a coming together over any question. Only
then is it possible to find out what
God is, what truth is. Now, we are trying to find truth through
intellect, through imitation - which is
idolatry. Only when you discard completely, through understanding,
the whole structure of the self,
can that which is eternal, timeless, immeasurable, come into
being. You cannot go to it; it comes to
you.
The First And Last Freedom 68 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 18 ’SELF-DECEPTION’
I WOULD LIKE TO discuss or consider the question of
self-deception, the delusions that the mind
indulges in and imposes upon itself and upon others. That is a
very serious matter, especially in a
crisis of the kind which the world is facing. But in order to
understand this whole problem of selfdeception
we must follow it not merely at the verbal level but
intrinsically, fundamentally, deeply. We
are too easily satisfied with words and counter-words; we are
worldlywise; and, being worldly-wise,
all that we can do is to hope that something will happen. We see
that the explanation of war does
not stop war; there are innumerable historians, theologians and
religious people explaining war and
how it comes into being but wars still go on, perhaps more
destructive than ever. Those of us who
are really earnest must go beyond the word, must seek this
fundamental revolution within ourselves.
That is the only remedy which can bring about a lasting,
fundamental redemption of mankind.
Similarly, when we are discussing this kind of self-deception, I
think we should guard against any
superficial explanations and rejoinders; we should, if I may
suggest it, not merely listen to a speaker
but follow the problem as we know it in our daily life; that is we
should watch ourselves in thinking
and in action, watch how we affect others and how we proceed to
act from ourselves.
What is the reason, the basis, for self-deception? How many of us
are actually aware that we are
deceiving ourselves? Before we can answer the question ”What is
self-deception and how does it
arise?”, must we not be aware that we are deceiving ourselves? Do
we know that we are deceiving
ourselves? What do we mean by this deception? I think it is very
important, because the more
we deceive ourselves the greater is the strength in the deception;
for it gives us a certain vitality,
a certain energy, a certain capacity which entails the imposing of
our deception on others. So
gradually we are not only imposing deception on ourselves but on
others. It is an interacting process
of self-deception. Are we aware of this process? We think we are
capable of thinking very clearly,
purposefully and directly; and are we aware that, in this process
of thinking, there is self-deception?
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CHAPTER 19. CHAPTER 18 ’SELF-DECEPTION’
Is not thought itself a process of search, a seeking of
justification, of security, of self-protection, a
desire to be well thought of, a desire to have position, prestige
and power? Is not this desire to be,
politically, or religio-sociologically, the very cause of
self-deception? The moment I want something
other than the purely materialistic necessities, do I not produce,
do I not bring about, a state which
easily accepts? Take, for example, this: many of us are interested
to know what happens after
death; the older we are, the more interested we are. We want to
know the truth of it. How shall we
find it? Certainly not by reading nor through the different
explanations.
How will you find it out? First, you must purge your mind
completely of every factor that is in the way -
every hope, every desire to continue, every desire to find out
what is on that other side. Because the
mind is constantly seeking security, it has the desire to continue
and hopes for a means of fulfilment,
for a future existence. Such a mind, though it is seeking the
truth of life after death, reincarnation
or whatever it is, is incapable of discovering that truth, is it
not? What is important is not whether
reincarnation is true or not but how the mind seeks justification,
through self-deception, of a fact
which may or may not be. What is important is the approach to the
problem, with what motivation,
with what urge, with what desire you come to it. The seeker is
always imposing this deception
upon himself; no one can impose it upon him; he himself does it.
We create deception and then we
become slaves to it. The fundamental factor of self-deception is
this constant desire to be something
in this world and in the world hereafter. We know the result of
wanting to be something in this world;
it is utter confusion, where each is competing with the other,
each is destroying the other in the
name of peace; you know the whole game we play with each other,
which is an extraordinary form
of self-deception. Similarly, we want security in the other world,
a position.
So we begin to deceive ourselves the moment there is this urge to
be, to become or to achieve.
That is a very difficult thing for the mind to be free from. That
is one of the basic problems of our
life. Is it possible to live in this world and be nothing? Then
only is there freedom from all deception,
because then only is the mind not seeking a result, the mind is
not seeking a satisfactory answer,
the mind is not seeking any form of justification, the mind is not
seeking security in any form, in
any relationship. That takes place only when the mind realizes the
possibilities and subtleties of
deception and therefore, with understanding, abandons every form
of justification, security - which
means the mind is capable, then, of being completely nothing. Is
that possible?
So long as we deceive ourselves in any form, there can be no love.
So long as the mind is capable of
creating and imposing upon itself a delusion, it obviously
separates itself from collective or integrated
understanding. That is one of our difficulties; we do not know how
to co-operate. All that we know
is that we try to work together towards an end which both of us
bring into being. There can be
co-operation only when you and I have no common aim created by
thought. What is important to
realize is that co-operation is only possible when you and I do
not desire to be anything. When you
and I desire to be something, then belief and all the rest of it
become necessary, a self-projected
Utopia is necessary. But if you and I are anonymously creating,
without any self-deception, without
any barriers of belief and knowledge, without a desire to be
secure, then there is true co-operation.
Is it possible for us to co-operate, for us to be together without
an end in view? Can you and I work
together without seeking a result? Surely that is true
co-operation, is it not? If you and I think out,
work out, plan out a result and we are working together towards
that result, then what is the process
involved? Our thoughts, our intellectual minds, are of course
meeting; but emotionally, the whole
being may be resisting it, which brings about deception, which
brings about conflict between you
The First And Last Freedom 70 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 19. CHAPTER 18 ’SELF-DECEPTION’
and me. It is an obvious and observable fact in our everyday life.
You and I agree to do a certain
piece of work intellectually but unconsciously, deeply, you and I
are at battle with each other. I want
a result to my satisfaction; I want to dominate; I want my name to
be ahead of yours, though I am
said to be working with you. So we both, who are creators of that
plan, are really opposing each
other, even though outwardly you and I agree as to the plan.
Is it not important to find out whether you and I can co-operate,
commune, live together in a world
where you and I are as nothing; whether we are able really and
truly to co-operate not at the
superficial level but fundamentally? That is one of our greatest
problems, perhaps the greatest. I
identify myself with an object and you identify yourself with the
same object; both of us are interested
in it; both of us are intending to bring it about. Surely this
process of thinking is very superficial,
because through identification we bring about separation - which
is so obvious in our everyday life.
You are a Hindu and I a Catholic; we both preach brotherhood, and
we are at each other’s throats.
Why? That is one of our problems, is it not? Unconsciously and
deeply, you have your beliefs and
I have mine. By talking about brotherhood, we have not solved the
whole problem of beliefs but
have only theoretically and intellectually agreed that this should
be so; inwardly and deeply, we are
against each other.
Until we dissolve those barriers which are a self-deception which
give us a certain vitality, there can
be no co-operation between you and me. Through identification with
a group, with a particular idea,
with a particular country, we can never bring about co-operation.
Belief does not bring about co-operation; on the contrary, it
divides. We see how one political party is
against another, each believing in a certain way of dealing with
economic problems, and so they are
all at war with one another. They are not resolved in solving, for
instance, the problem of starvation.
They are concerned with the theories which are going to solve that
problem. They are not actually
concerned with the problem itself but with the method by which the
problem will be solved. Therefore
there must be contention between the two, because they are
concerned with the idea and not with
the problem. Similarly, religious people are against each other,
though verbally they say they have
all one life, one God; you know all that. Inwardly their beliefs,
their opinions, their experiences are
destroying them and are keeping them separate.
Experience becomes a dividing factor in our human relationship;
experience is a way of deception.
If I have experienced something, I cling to it, I do not go into
the whole problem of the process of
experiencing but, because I have experienced, that is sufficient
and I cling to it; thereby I impose,
through that experience, self-deception.
Our difficulty is that each of us is so identified with a
particular belief, with a particular form or
method of bringing about happiness, economic adjustment, that our
mind is captured by that and
we are incapable of going deeper into the problem; therefore we
desire to remain aloof individually
in our particular ways, beliefs and experiences. Until we dissolve
them, through understanding -
not only at the superficial level, but at the deeper level also -
there can be no peace in the world.
That is why it is important for those who are really serious, to
understand this whole problem - the
desire to become, to achieve, to gain - not only at the
superficial level but fundamentally and deeply;
otherwise there can be no peace in the world.
Truth is not something to be gained. Love cannot come to those who
have a desire to hold on to
it, or who like to become identified with it. Surely such things
come when the mind does not seek,
The First And Last Freedom 71 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 19. CHAPTER 18 ’SELF-DECEPTION’
when the mind is completely quiet, no longer creating movements
and beliefs upon which it can
depend, or from which it derives a certain strength, which is an
indication of self-deception. It is only
when the mind understands this whole process of desire that it can
be still. Only then is the mind
not in movement to be or not to be; then only is there the
possibility of a state in which there is no
deception of any kind.
The First And Last Freedom 72 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 19 ’SELF-CENTRED ACTIVITY’
MOST OF US, I think, are aware that every form of persuasion,
every kind of inducement, has been
offered us to resist self-centred activities. Religions, through
promises, through fear of hell, through
every form of condemnation have tried in different ways to
dissuade man from this constant activity
that is born from the centre of the ‘me’. These having failed,
political organizations have taken over.
There again, persuasion; there again the ultimate utopian hope.
Every form of legislation from the
very limited to the extreme, including concentration camps, has
been used and enforced against
any form of resistance. Yet we go on in our self-centred activity,
which is the only kind of action we
seem to know. If we think about it at all, we try to modify; if we
are aware of it, we try to change the
course of it; but fundamentally, deeply, there is no
transformation, there is no radical cessation of that
activity. The thoughtful are aware of this; they are also aware
that when that activity from the centre
ceases, only then can there be happiness. Most of us take it for
granted that self-centred activity
is natural and that the consequential action, which is inevitable,
can only be modified, shaped and
controlled. Now those who are a little more serious, more earnest,
not sincere - because sincerity
is the way of self-deception - must find out whether, being aware
of this extraordinary total process
of self-centred activity, one can go beyond.
To understand what this self-centred activity is, one must
obviously examine it, look at it, be aware
of the entire process. If one can be aware of it, then there is
the possibility of its dissolution; but to
be aware of it requires a certain understanding, a certain
intention to face the thing as it is and not
to interpret, not to modify, not to condemn it. We have to be
aware of what we are doing, of all the
activity which springs from that self-centred state; we must be
conscious of if it. One of our primary
difficulties is that the moment we are conscious of that activity,
we want to shape it, we want to
control it, we want to condemn it or we want to modify it, so we
are seldom able to look at it directly.
When we do, very few of us are capable of knowing what to do.
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CHAPTER 20. CHAPTER 19 ’SELF-CENTRED ACTIVITY’
We realize that self-centred activities are detrimental, are
destructive, and that every form of
identification - such as with a country, with a particular group,
with a particular desire, the search for
a result here or hereafter, the glorification of an idea, the
pursuit of an example, the pursuit of virtue
and so on - is essentially the activity of a self-centred person.
All our relationships, with nature, with
people, with ideas, are the outcome of that activity. Knowing all
this, what is one to do? All such
activity must voluntarily come to an end - not self-imposed, not
influenced, not guided.
Most of us are aware that this self-centred activity creates
mischief and chaos but we are only aware
of it in certain directions. Either we observe it in others and
are ignorant of our own activities or being
aware, in relationship with others, of our own self-centred
activity we want to transform, we want to
find a substitute, we want to go beyond. Before we can deal with
it we must know how this process
comes into being, must we not? In order to understand something,
we must be capable of looking
at it; and to look at it we must know its various activities at
different levels, conscious as well as
unconscious - the conscious directives, and also the self-centred
movements of our unconscious
motives and intentions.
I am only conscious of this activity of the ‘me’ when I am
opposing, when consciousness is thwarted,
when the ‘me’ is desirous of achieving a result, am I not? Or I am
conscious of that centre when
pleasure comes to an end and I want to have more of it; then there
is resistance and a purposive
shaping of the mind to a particular end which will give me a
delight, a satisfaction; I am aware of
myself and my activities when I am pursuing virtue consciously.
Surely a man who pursues virtue
consciously is unvirtuous. Humility cannot be pursued, and that is
the beauty of humility.
This self-centred process is the result of time, is it not? So
long as this centre of activity exists in
any direction, conscious or unconscious, there is the movement of time
and I am conscious of the
past and the present in conjunction with the future. The
self-centred activity of the ‘me’ is a time
process. It is memory that gives continuity to the activity of the
centre, which is the ‘me’. If you
watch yourself and are aware of this centre of activity, you will
see that it is only the process of time,
of memory, of experiencing and translating every experience
accord1ng to a memory; you will also
see that self-activity is recognition, which is also the process
of the mind.
Can the mind be free from all this? It may be possible at rare
moments; it may happen to most of us
when we do an unconscious, unintentional, unpurposive act; but is
it possible for the mind ever to
be completely free from self-centred activity? That is a very
important question to put to ourselves,
because in the very putting of it, you will find the answer. If
you are aware of the total process of
this self-centred activity, fully cognizant of its activities at
different levels of your consciousness, then
surely you have to ask yourselves if it is possible for that
activity to come to an end. Is it possible
not to think in terms of time, not to think in terms of what I
shall be, what I have been, what I am
? For from such thought the whole process of self-centred activity
begins; there, also, begins the
determination to become, the determination to choose and to avoid,
which are all a process of time.
We see in that process infinite mischief, misery, confusion,
distortion, deterioration.
Surely the process of time is not revolutionary. In the process of
time there is no transformation; there
is only a continuity and no ending, there is nothing but
recognition. It is only when you have complete
cessation of the time process, of the activity of the self, that
there is a revolution, a transformation,
the coming into being of the new.
Being aware of this whole total process of the ‘me’ in its
activity, what is the mind to do? It is only
The First And Last Freedom 74 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 20. CHAPTER 19 ’SELF-CENTRED ACTIVITY’
with renewal, it is only with revolution - not through evolution,
not through the ‘me’ becoming, but
through the ‘me’ completely coming to an end - that there is the
new. The time process cannot bring
the new; time is not the way of creation.
I do not know if any of you have had a moment of creativity. I am
not talking of putting some vision
into action; I mean that moment of creation when there is no
recognition. At that moment, there is
that extraordinary state in which the ‘me’, as an activity through
recognition, has ceased. If we are
aware, we shall see that in that state there is no experiencer who
remembers, translates, recognizes
and then identifies; there is no thought process, which is of
time. In that state of creation, of creativity
of the new, which is timeless, there is no action of the ‘me’ at
all.
Our question surely is: Is it possible for the mind to be in that
state, not momentarily, not at rare
moments, but - I would rather not use the words ‘everlasting’ or ‘for
ever’, because that would imply
time - but to be in that state without regard to time? Surely that
is an important discovery to be made
by each one of us, because that is the door to love; all other
doors are activities of the self Where
there is action of the self, there is no love. Love is not of
time. You cannot practise love. If you do,
then it is a self-conscious activity of the ‘me’ which hopes
through loving to gain a result.
Love is not of time; you cannot come upon it through any conscious
effort, through any discipline,
through identification, which is all of the process of time. The
mind, knowing only the process of
time, cannot recognize love. Love is the only thing that is
eternally new. Since most of us have
cultivated the mind, which is the result of time, we do not know
what love is. We talk about love; we
say we love people, that we love our children, our wife, our
neighbour, that we love nature; but the
moment we are conscious that we love, self-activity has come into
being; therefore it ceases to be
love.
This total process of the mind is to be understood only through
relationship - relationship with nature,
with people, with our own projections, with everything about us.
Life is nothing but relationship.
Though we may attempt to isolate ourselves from relationship, we
cannot exist without it. Though
relationship is painful we cannot run away, by means of isolation,
by becoming a hermit and so on.
All these methods are indications of the activity of the self.
Seeing this whole picture, being aware of
the whole process of time as consciousness, without any choice,
without any determined, purposive
intention, without the desire for any result, you will see that
this process of time comes to an end
voluntarily - not induced, not as a result of desire. It is only
when that process comes to an end that
love is, which is eternally new.
We do not have to seek truth. Truth is not something far away. It
is the truth about the mind, truth
about its activities from moment to moment. If we are aware of
this moment-to-moment truth, of this
whole process of time, that awareness releases consciousness or
the energy which is intelligence,
love. So long as the mind uses consciousness as self-activity,
time comes into being with all its
miseries, with all its conflicts, with all its mischief, its
purposive deceptions; and it is only when the
mind, understanding this total process, ceases, that love can be.
The First And Last Freedom 75 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 20 ’TIME AND TRANSFORMATION’
I WOULD LIKE TO TALK a little about what is time, because I think
the enrichment, the beauty
and significance of that which is timeless, of that which is true,
can be experienced only when we
understand the whole process of time. After all, we are seeking,
each in his own way, a sense
of happiness, of enrichment. Surely a life that has significance,
the riches of true happiness, is
not of time. Like love, such a life is timeless; and to understand
that which is timeless, we must
not approach it through time but rather understand time. We must
not utilize time as a means of
attaining, realizing, apprehending the timeless. That is what we
are doing most of our lives: spending
time in trying to grasp that which is timeless, so it is important
to understand what we mean by time,
because I think it is possible to be free of time. It is very
important to understand time as a whole
and not partially.
It is interesting to realize that our lives are mostly spent in
time - time, not in the sense of
chronological sequence, of minutes, hours, days and years, but in
the sense of psychological
memory. We live by time, we are the result of time. Our minds are
the product of many yesterdays
and the present is merely the passage of the past to the future.
Our minds, our activities, our being,
are founded on time; without time we cannot think, because thought
is the result of time, thought is
the product of many yesterdays and there is no thought without
memory. Memory is time; for there
are two kinds of time, the chronological and the psychological.
There is time as yesterday by the
watch and as yesterday by memory. You cannot reject chronological
time; it would be absurd - you
would miss your train. But is there really any time at all apart
from chronological time? Obviously
there is time as yesterday but is there time as the mind thinks of
it? Is there time apart from the mind?
Surely time, psychological time, is the product of the mind.
Without the foundation of thought there is
no time - time merely being memory as yesterday in conjunction
with today, which moulds tomorrow.
That is, memory of yesterday’s experience in response to the
present is creating the future - which
is still the process of thought, a path of the mind. The thought
process brings about psychological
76
CHAPTER 21. CHAPTER 20 ’TIME AND TRANSFORMATION’
progress in time but is it real, as real as chronological time?
And can we use that time which is
of the mind as a means of understanding the eternal, the timeless?
As I said, happiness is not of
yesterday, happiness is not the product of time, happiness is
always in the present, a timeless state.
I do not know if you have noticed that when you have ecstasy, a
creative joy, a series of bright clouds
surrounded by dark clouds, in that moment there is no time: there
is only the immediate present.
The mind, coming in after the experiencing in the present,
remembers and wishes to continue it,
gathering more and more of itself, thereby creating time. So time
is created by the ‘more; time is
acquisition and time is also detachment, which is still an
acquisition of the mind. Therefore merely
disciplining the mind in time, conditioning thought within the
framework of time, which is memory,
surely does not reveal that which is timeless.
Is transformation a matter of time? Most of us are accustomed to
think that time is necessary for
transformation: I am something, and to change what I am into what
I should be requires time. I
am greedy, with greed’s results of confusion, antagonism,
conflict, and misery; to bring about the
transformation, which is non-greed, we think time is necessary.
That is to say time is considered
as a means of evolving something greater, of becoming something.
The problem is this: One is
violent, greedy, envious, angry, vicious or passionate. To
transform what is, is time necessary? First
of all, why do we want to change what is, or bring about a
transformation? Why? Because what
we are dissatisfies us; it creates conflict, disturbance, and, disliking
that state, we want something
better, something nobler, more idealistic. Therefore we desire
transformation because there is pain,
discomfort, conflict. Is conflict overcome by time ? If you say it
will be overcome by time, you are
still in conflict. You may say it will take twenty days or twenty
years to get rid of conflict, to change
what you are, but during that time you are still in conflict and
therefore time does not bring about
transformation. When we use time as a means of acquiring a quality,
a virtue or a state of being,
we are merely postponing or avoiding what is; and I think it is
important to understand this point.
greed or violence causes pain, disturbance in the world of our
relationship with another, which is
society; and being conscious of this state of disturbance, which
we term greed or violence, we say
to ourselves, ”I will get out of it in time. I will practise
non-violence, I will practise non-envy, I will
practise peace.” Now, you want to practise non-violence because
violence is a state of disturbance,
conflict, and you think that in time you will gain non-violence
and overcome the conflict. What is
actually happening? Being in a state of conflict you want to
achieve a state in which there is no
conflict. Now is that state of no conflict the result of time, of
a duration? Obviously not; because,
while you are achieving a state of non-violence, you are still
being violent and are therefore still in
conflict.
Our problem is, can a conflict, a disturbance, be overcome in a
period of time, whether it be days,
years or lives? What happens when you say, ”I am going to practise
non-violence during a certain
period of time”? The very practice indicates that you are in
conflict, does it not? You would not
practise if you were not resisting conflict; you say the
resistance to conflict is necessary in order to
overcome conflict and for that resistance you must have time. But
the very resistance to conflict is
itself a form of conflict. You are spending your energy in
resisting conflict in the form of what you
call greed, envy or violence but your mind is still in conflict,
so it is important to see the falseness
of the process of depending on time as a means of overcoming
violence and thereby be free of that
process. Then you are able to be what you are: a psychological
disturbance which is violence itself.
To understand anything, any human or scientific problem, what is
important, what is essential? A
quiet mind, is it not?, a mind that is intent on understanding. It
is not a mind that is exclusive,
The First And Last Freedom 77 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 21. CHAPTER 20 ’TIME AND TRANSFORMATION’
that is trying to concentrate - which again is an effort of
resistance. If I really want to understand
something, there is immediately a quiet state of mind. When you
want to listen to music or look at
a picture which you love, which you have a feeling for, what is
the state of your mind? Immediately
there is a quietness, is there not? When you are listening to
music, your mind does not wander
all over the place; you are listening. Similarly, when you want to
understand conflict, you are no
longer depending on time at all; you are simply confronted with
what is, which is conflict. Then
immediately there comes a quietness, a stillness of mind. When you
no longer depend on time
as a means of transforming what is because you see the falseness
of that process, then you are
confronted with what is, and as you are interested to understand
what is, naturally you have a quiet
mind. In that alert yet passive state of mind there is
understanding. So long as the mind is in conflict,
blaming, resisting, condemning, there can be no understanding. If
I want to understand you, I must
not condemn you, obviously. It is that quiet mind, that still
mind, which brings about transformation.
When the mind is no longer resisting, no longer avoiding, no
longer discarding or blaming what is
but is simply passively aware, then in that passivity of the mind
you will find, if you really go into the
problem, that there comes a transformation.
Revolution is only possible now, not in the future; regeneration
is today, not tomorrow. If you will
experiment with what I have been saying, you will find that there
is immediate regeneration, a
newness, a quality of freshness; because the mind is always still
when it is interested, when it desires
or has the intention to understand. The difficulty with most of us
is that we have not the intention to
understand, because we are afraid that, if we understood, it might
bring about a revolutionary action
in our life and therefore we resist. It is the defence mechanism
that is at work when we use time or
an ideal as a means of gradual transformation.
Thus regeneration is only possible in the present, not in the
future, not tomorrow. A man who relies
on time as a means through which he can gain happiness or realize
truth or God is merely deceiving
himself; he is living in ignorance and therefore in conflict. A
man who sees that time is not the way
out of our difficulty and who is therefore free from the false,
such a man naturally has the intention to
understand; therefore his mind is quiet spontaneously, without
compulsion, without practice. When
the mind is still, tranquil, not seeking any answer or any
solution, neither resisting nor avoiding - it is
only then that there can be a regeneration, because then the mind
is capable of perceiving what is
true; and it is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.
The First And Last Freedom 78 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 21 ’POWER AND REALIZATION’
WE SEE THAT A radical change is necessary in society, in
ourselves, in our individual and group
relationships; how is it to be brought about? If change is through
conformity to a pattern projected by
the mind, through a reasonable, well studied plan, then it is
still within the field of the mind; therefore
whatever the mind calculates becomes the end, the vision for which
we are willing to sacrifice
ourselves and others. If you maintain that, then it follows that
we as human beings are merely
the creation of the mind, which implies conformity, compulsion,
brutality, dictatorships, concentration
camps - the whole business. When we worship the mind, all that is
implied, is it not? If I realize
this, if I see the futility of discipline, of control, if I see
that the various forms of suppression only
strengthen the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’, then what am I to do?
To consider this problem fully we must go into the question of
what is consciousness. I wonder
if you have thought about it for yourself or have merely quoted
what authorities have said about
consciousness? I do not know how you have understood from your own
experience, from your own
study of yourself, what this consciousness implies - not only the consciousness
of everyday activity
and pursuits but the consciousness that is hidden, deeper, richer
and much more difficult to get at.
If we are to discuss this question of a fundamental change in
ourselves and therefore in the world,
and in this change to awaken a certain vision, an enthusiasm, a
zeal, a faith, a hope, a certainty
which will give us the necessary impetus for action - if we are to
understand that, isn’t it necessary
to go into this question of consciousness? We can see what we mean
by consciousness at the
superficial level of the mind. Obviously it is the thinking
process, thought. Thought is the result of
memory, verbalization; it is the naming, recording and storing up
of certain experiences, so as to be
able to communicate; at this level there are also various
inhibitions, controls, sanctions, disciplines.
With all this we are quite familiar. When we go a little deeper
there are all the accumulations of the
race, the hidden motives, the collective and personal ambitions,
prejudices, which are the result of
perception, contact and desire. This total consciousness, the
hidden as well as the open, is centred
round the idea of the ‘me’, the self.
79
CHAPTER 22. CHAPTER 21 ’POWER AND REALIZATION’
When we discuss how to bring about a change we generally mean a
change at the superficial level,
do we not? Through determination, conclusions, beliefs, controls,
inhibitions, we struggle to reach
a superficial end which we want, which we crave for, and we hope
to arrive at that with the help of
the unconscious, of the deeper layers of the mind; therefore we
think it is necessary to uncover the
depths of oneself. But there is everlasting conflict between the
superficial levels and the so-called
deeper levels - all psychologists, all those who have pursued
self-knowledge are fully aware of that.
Will this inner conflict bring about a change? Is that not the
most fundamental and important
question in our daily life: how to bring about a radical change in
ourselves? Will mere alteration
at the superficial level bring it about? Will understanding the
different layers of consciousness, of the
‘me’, uncovering the past, the various personal experiences from
childhood up to now, examining in
myself the collective experiences of my father, my mother, my
ancestors, my race, the conditioning
of the particular society in which I live - will the analysis of
all that bring about a change which is not
merely an adjustment?
I feel, and surely you also must feel, that a fundamental change
in one’s life is essential - a change
which is not a mere reaction, which is not the outcome of the
stress and strain of environmental
demands. How is one to bring about such a change? My consciousness
is the sum total of human
experience, plus my particular contact with the present; can that
bring about a change? Will the
study of my own consciousness, of my activities, will the
awareness of my thoughts and feelings,
stilling the mind in order to observe without condemnation, will
that process bring about a change?
Can there be change through belief, through identification with a
projected image called the ideal?
Does not all this imply a certain conflict between what I am and
what I should be? Will conflict
bring about fundamental change? I am in constant battle within
myself and with society, am I not?
There is a ceaseless conflict going on between what I am and what
I want to be; will this conflict,
this struggle bring about a change? I see a change is essential;
can I bring it about by examining
the whole process of my consciousness, by struggling by
disciplining by practising various forms
of repression? I feel such a process cannot bring about a radical
change. Of that one must be
completely sure. And if that process cannot bring about a
fundamental transformation, a deep
inward revolution, then what will?
How are you to bring about true revolution? What is the power, the
creative energy that brings about
that revolut1on and how is it to be released? You have tried disciplines,
you have tried the pursuit of
ideals and various speculative theories: that you are God, and
that if you can realize that Godhood
or experience the Atman, the highest, or what you will, then that
very realization will bring about a
fundamental change. Will it? First you postulate that there is a
reality of which you are a part and
build up round it various theories, speculations, beliefs,
doctrines, assumptions, according to which
you live; by thinking and acting according to that pattern you hope
to bring about a fundamental
change. Will you?
Suppose you assume, as most so-called religious people do, that
there is in you, fundamentally,
deeply, the essence of reality; and that if, through cultivating
virtue, through various forms of
discipline, control, suppression, denial, sacrifice, you can get
into touch with that reality, then the
required transformation will be brought about. Is not this
assumption still part of thought? Is it not
the outcome of a conditioned mind, a mind that has been brought up
to think in a particular way,
according to certain patterns? Having created the image, the idea,
the theory, the belief, the hope,
you then look to your creation to bring about this radical change.
The First And Last Freedom 80 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 22. CHAPTER 21 ’POWER AND REALIZATION’
One must first see the extraordinarily subtle activities of the ‘me’,
of the mind, one must become
aware of the ideas, beliefs, speculations and put them all aside,
for they are deceptions, are they
not? Others may have experienced reality; but if you have not
experienced it, what is the good of
speculating about it or imagining that you are in essence
something real, immortal, godly? That is
still within the field of thought and anything that springs from
thought is conditioned, is of time, of
memory; therefore it is not real. If one actually realizes that -
not speculatively, not imaginatively
or foolishly, but actually sees the truth that any activity of the
mind in its speculative search, in its
philosophical groping, any assumption, any imagination or hope is
only self-deception - then what is
the power, the creative energy that brings about this fundamental
transformation?
Perhaps, in coming to this point, we have used the conscious mind;
we have followed the argument,
we have opposed or accepted it, we have seen it clearly or dimly.
To go further and experience
more deeply requires a mind that is quiet and alert to find out,
does it not? It is no longer pursuing
ideas because, if you pursue an idea, there is the thinker
following what is being said and so you
immediately create duality. If you want to go further into this
matter of fundamental change, is
it not necessary for the active mind to be quiet? Surely it is
only when the mind is quiet that it
can understand the enormous difficulty, the complex implications
of the thinker and the thought
as two separate processes, the experiencer and the experienced,
the observer and the observed.
Revolution, this psychological, creative revolution in which the ‘me’
is not, comes only when the
thinker and the thought are one, when there is no duality such as
the thinker controlling thought; and
I suggest it is this experience alone that releases the creative
energy which in turn brings about a
fundamental revolution, the breaking up of the psychological ‘me’.
We know the way of power - power through domination, power through
discipline, power through
compulsion. Through political power we hope to change
fundamentally; but such power only breeds
further darkness, disintegration evil, the strengthening of the ‘me’.
We are familiar with the various
forms of acquisition, both individually and as groups, but we have
never tried the way of love, and
we don’t even know what it means. Love is not possible so long as
there is the thinker, the centre of
the ‘me’. Realizing all this, what is one to do?
Surely the only thing which can bring about a fundamental change,
a creative, psychological release,
is everyday watchfulness, being aware from moment to moment of our
motives, the conscious as
well as the unconscious. When we realize that disciplines,
beliefs, ideals only strengthen the ‘me’
and are therefore utterly futile - when we are aware of that from
day to day, see the truth of it, do
we not to the central point when the thinker is constantly
separating himself from his thought, from
his observations, from his experiences? So long as the thinker
exists apart from his thought, which
he is trying to dominate, there can be no fundamental
transformation. So long as the ‘me’ is the
observer, the one who gathers experience, strengthens himself
through experience, there can be
no radical change, no creative release. That creative release
comes only when the thinker is the
thought - but the gap cannot be bridged by any effort. When the
mind realizes that any speculation
any verbalization, any form of thought only gives strength to the ‘me’,
when it sees that as long as
the thinker exists apart from thought there must be limitation,
the conflict of duality - when the mind
realizes that, then it is watchful, everlastingly aware of how it
is separating itself from experience,
asserting itself, seeking power. In that awareness, if the mind
pursues it ever more deeply and
extensively without seeking an end, a goal, there comes a state in
which the thinker and the thought
are one. In that state there is no effort, there is no becoming,
there is no desire to change; in that
state the ‘me’ is not, for there is a transformation which is not
of the mind.
The First And Last Freedom 81 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 22. CHAPTER 21 ’POWER AND REALIZATION’
It is only when the mind is empty that there is a possibility of
creation; but I do not mean this
superficial emptiness which most of us have. Most of us are
superficially empty, and it shows
itself through the desire for distraction. We want to be amused,
so we turn to books, to the radio,
we run to lectures, to authorities; the mind is everlastingly
filling itself. I am not talking of that
emptiness which is thoughtlessness. On the contrary, I am talking
of the emptiness which comes
through extraordinary thoughtfulness, when the mind sees its own
power of creating illusion and
goes beyond.
Creative emptiness is not possible so long as there is the thinker
who is waiting, watching, observing
in order to gather experience, in order to strengthen himself. Can
the mind ever be empty of all
symbols, of all words with their sensations, so that there is no
experiencer who is accumulating? Is
it possible for the mind to put aside completely all the
reasonings, the experiences, the impositions,
authorities, so that it is in a state of emptiness? You will not
be able to answer this question, naturally;
it is an impossible question for you to answer, because you do not
know, you have never tried. But,
if I may suggest, listen to it, let the question be put to you,
let the seed be sown; and it will bear fruit
if you really listen to it, if you do not resist it.
It is only the new that can transform, not the old. If you pursue
the pattern of the old, any change is
a modified continuity of the old; there is nothing new in that,
there is nothing creative. The creative
can come into being only when the mind itself is new; and the mind
can renew itself only when it is
capable of seeing all its own activities, not only at the
superficial level, but deep down. When the
mind sees its own activities, is aware of its own desires,
demands, urges, pursuits, the creation of its
own authorities, fears; when it sees in itself the resistance
created by discipline, by control, and the
hope which projects beliefs, ideals - when the mind sees through,
is aware of this whole process, can
it put aside all these things and be new, creatively empty? You
will find out whether it can or cannot
only if you experiment without having an opinion about it, without
wanting to experience that creative
state. If you want to experience it, you will; but what you
experience is not creative emptiness, it is
only a projection of desire. If you desire to experience the new,
you are merely indulging in illusion;
but if you begin to observe, to be aware of your own activities
from day to day, from moment to
moment, watching the whole process of yourself as in a mirror,
then, as you go deeper and deeper,
you will come to the ultimate question of this emptiness in which
alone there can be the new.
Truth, God or what you will, is not something to be experienced,
for the experiencer is the result
of time, the result of memory, of the past, and so long as there
is the experiencer there cannot be
reality. There is reality only when the mind is completely free
from the analyser, from the experiencer
and the experienced. Then you will find the answer, then you will
see that the change comes without
your asking, that the state of creative emptiness is not a thing
to be cultivated - it is there, it comes
darkly, without any invitation; only in that state is there a
possibility of renewal, newness, revolution.
The First And Last Freedom 82 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 23
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 1 ’ON THE PRESENT
CRISIS’
Question: You say the present crisis is without precedent. In what
way is it exceptional?
Krishnamurti: Obviously the present crisis throughout the world is
exceptional, without precedent.
There have been crises of varying types at different periods
throughout history, social, national,
political. Crises come and go; economic recessions, depressions,
come, get modified, and continue
in a different form. We know that; we are familiar with that
process. Surely the present crisis is
different, is it not? It is different first because we are dealing
not with money nor with tangible things
but with ideas. The crisis is exceptional because it is in the
field of ideation. We are quarrelling with
ideas, we are justifying murder; everywhere in the world we are
justifying murder as a means to a
righteous end, which in itself is unprecedented. Before, evil was
recognized to be evil, murder was
recognized to be murder, but now murder is a means to achieve a
noble result. Murder, whether of
one person or of a group of people, is justified, because the
murderer, or the group that the murderer
represents, justifies it as a means of achieving a result which
will be beneficial to man. That is we
sacrifice the present for the future - and it does not matter what
means we employ as long as our
declared purpose is to produce a result which we say will be
beneficial to man. Therefore, the
implication is that a wrong means will produce a right end and you
justify the wrong means through
ideation. In the various crises that have taken place before, the
issue has been the exploitation of
things or of man; it is now the exploitation of ideas, which is
much more pernicious, much more
dangerous, because the exploitation of ideas is so devastating, so
destructive. We have learned
now the power of propaganda and that is one of the greatest
calamities that can happen: to use
ideas as a means to transform man. That is what is happening in
the world today. Man is not
important - systems, ideas, have become important. Man no longer
has any significance. We can
destroy millions of men as long as we produce a result and the
result is justified by ideas. We
have a magnificent structure of ideas to justify evil and surely
that is unprecedented. Evil is evil; it
83
CHAPTER 23. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 1 ’ON THE PRESENT
CRISIS’
cannot bring about good. War is not a means to peace. War may
bring about secondary benefits,
like more efficient aeroplanes, but it will not bring peace to
man. War is intellectually justified as a
means of bringing peace; when the intellect has the upper hand in
human life, it brings about an
unprecedented crisis.
There are other causes also which indicate an unprecedented
crisis. One of them is the
extraordinary importance man is going to sensate values, to
property, to name, to caste and
country, to the particular label you wear. You are either a
Mohammedan or a Hindu, a Christian
or a Communist. Name and property, caste and country, have become
predominantly important,
which means that man is caught in sensate value, the value of
things, whether made by the mind
or by the hand. Things made by the hand or by the mind have become
so important that we are
killing, destroying, butchering, liquidating each other because of
them. We are nearing the edge
of a precipice; every action is leading us there, every political,
every economic action is bringing
us inevitably to the precipice, dragging us into this chaotic,
confusing abyss. Therefore the crisis
is unprecedented and it demands unprecedented action. To leave, to
step out of that crisis, needs
a timeless action, an action which is not based on idea, on
system, because any action which is
based on a system, on an idea, will inevitably lead to
frustration. Such action merely brings us back
to the abyss by a different route. As the crisis is unprecedented
there must also be unprecedented
action, which means that the regeneration of the individual must
be instantaneous, not a process of
time. It must take place now, not tomorrow; for tomorrow is a
process of disintegration. If I think of
transforming myself tomorrow I invite confusion, I am still within
the field of destruction. Is it possible
to change now? Is it possible completely to transform oneself in
the immediate, in the now? I say it
is.
The point is that as the crisis is of an exceptional character to
meet it there must be revolution
in thinking; and this revolution cannot take place through
another, through any book, through any
organization. It must come through us, through each one of us.
Only then can we create a new
society, a new structure away from this horror, away from these
extraordinarily destructive forces
that are being accumulated, piled up; and that transformation
comes into being only when you as
an individual begin to be aware of yourself in every thought,
action and feeling.
The First And Last Freedom 84 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 24
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 2 ’ON NATIONALISM’
Question: What is it that comes when nationalism goes?
Krishnamurti: Obviously, intelligence. But I am afraid that is not
the implication in this question. The
implication is, what can be substituted for nationalism? Any
substitution is an act which does not
bring intelligence. If I leave one religion and join another, or
leave one political party and later on
join something else, this constant substitution indicates a state
in which there is no intelligence.
How does nationalism go? Only by our understanding its full
implications, by examining it, by being
aware of its significance in outward and inward action. Outwardly
it brings about divisions between
people, classifications, wars and destruction, which is obvious to
anyone who is observant. Inwardly,
psychologically, this identification with the greater, with the
country, with an idea, is obviously a form
of self-expansion. Living in a little village or a big town or
whatever it may be, I am nobody; but
if I identify myself with the larger, with the country, if I call
myself a Hindu, it flatters my vanity,
it gives me gratification, prestige, a sense of well-being; and
that identification with the larger,
which is a psychological necessity for those who feel that
self-expansion is essential, also creates
conflict, strife, between people. Thus nationalism not only
creates outward conflict but inward
frustrations; when one understands nationalism, the whole process
of nationalism, it falls away.
The understanding of nationalism comes through intelligence, by
carefully observing, by probing
into the whole process of nationalism, patriotism. Out of that
examination comes intelligence and
then there is no substitution of something else for nationalism.
The moment you substitute religion
for national1sm, religion becomes another means of self-expansion,
another source of psychological
anxiety, a means of feeding oneself through a belief. Therefore
any form of substitution, however
noble, is a form of ignorance. It is like a man substituting
chewing gum or betel nut or whatever it is
for smoking, whereas if one really understands the whole problem
of smoking, of habits, sensations,
psychological demands and all the rest of it, then smoking drops
away. You can understand only
85
CHAPTER 24. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 2 ’ON NATIONALISM’
when there is a development of intelligence, when intelligence is
functioning, and intelligence is not
functioning when there is substitution. Substitution is merely a
form of self-bribery, to tempt you not
to do this but to do that. Nationalism, with its poison, with its
misery and world strife, can disappear
only when there is intelligence, and intelligence does not come
merely by passing examinations
and studying books. Intelligence comes into being when we
understand problems as they arise.
When there is understanding of the problem at its different
levels, not only of the outward part but
of its inward, psychological implications, then, in that process,
intelligence comes into being. So
when there is intelligence there is no substitution; and when
there is intelligence, then nationalism,
patriotism, which is a form of stupidity, disappears.
The First And Last Freedom 86 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 25
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 3 ’WHY SPIRITUAL
TEACHERS?’
Question: You say that gurus are unnecessary, but how can I find
truth without the wise help and
guidance which only a guru can give?
Krishnamurti: The question is whether a guru is necessary or not,
Can truth be found through
another? Some say it can and some say it cannot. We want to know
the truth of this, not my opinion
as against the opinion of another. I have no opinion in this
matter. Either it is so or it is not. Whether
it is essential that you should or should not have a guru is not a
quest1on of opinion. The truth of
the matter is not dependent on opinion, however profound, erudite,
popular, universal. The truth of
the matter is to be found out, in fact.
First of all, why do we want a guru? We say we need a guru because
we are confused and the guru
is helpful; he will point out what truth is, he will help us to
understand, he knows much more about
life than we do, he will act as a father, as a teacher to instruct
us in life; he has vast experience and
we have but little; he will help us through his greater experience
and so on and on. That is, basically,
you go to a teacher because you are confused. If you were clear,
you would not go near a guru.
Obviously if you were profoundly happy, if there were no problems,
if you understood life completely,
you would not go to any guru. I hope you see the significance of
this. Because you are confused,
you seek out a teacher. You go to him to give you a way of life to
clarify your own confusion, to find
truth. You choose your guru because you are confused and you hope
he will give you what you ask.
That is you choose a guru who will satisfy your demand; you choose
according to the gratification
he will give you and your choice is dependent on your
gratification. You do not choose a guru who
says, ”Depend on yourself; you choose him according to your
prejudices. So since you choose your
guru according to the gratification he gives you, you are not
seeking truth but a way out of confusion;
and the way out of confusion is mistakenly called truth.
87
CHAPTER 25. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 3 ’WHY SPIRITUAL
TEACHERS?’
Let us examine first this idea that a guru can clear up our
confusion. Can anyone clear up our
confusion? - confusion being the product of our responses. We have
created it. Do you think
someone else has created it - this misery, this battle at all
levels of existence, within and without?
It is the result of our own lack of knowledge of ourselves. It is
because we do not understand
ourselves, our conflicts, our responses, our miseries, that we go
to a guru whom we think will help
us to be free of that confusion. We can understand ourselves only
in relationship to the present;
and that relationship itself is the guru not someone outside. If I
do not understand that relationship,
whatever a guru may say is useless, because if I do not understand
relationship, my relationship to
property, to people, to ideas, who can resolve the conflict within
me? To resolve that conflict, I must
understand it myself, which means I must be aware of myself in relationship.
To be aware, no guru
is necessary. If I do not know myself, of what use is a guru? As a
political leader is chosen by those
who are in confusion and whose choice therefore is also confused,
so I choose a guru. I can choose
him only according to my confusion; hence he, like the political
leader, is confused.
What is important is not who is right - whether I am right or
whether those are right who say a guru
is necessary; to find out why you need a guru is important. Gurus
exist for exploitation of various
kinds, but that is irrelevant. It gives you satisfaction if
someone tells you how you are progressing,
but to find out why you need a guru - there lies the key. Another
can point out the way but you have
to do all the work, even if you have a guru. Because you do not
want to face that, you shift the
responsibility to the guru. The guru becomes useless when there is
a particle of self-knowledge. No
guru, no book or scripture, can give you self-knowledge: it comes
when you are aware of yourself in
relationship. To be, is to be related; not to understand
relationship is misery, strife. Not to be aware
of your relationship to property is one of the causes of
confusion. If you do not know your right
relationship to property there is bound to be conflict, which
increases the conflict in society. If you
do not understand the relationship between yourself and your wife,
between yourself and your child,
how can another resolve the conflict arising out of that
relationship? Similarly with ideas, beliefs and
so on. Being confused in your relationship with people, with
property, with ideas, you seek a guru. If
he is a real guru, he will tell you to understand yourself. You
are the source of all misunderstanding
and confusion; and you can resolve that conflict only when you
understand yourself in relationship.
You cannot find truth through anybody else. How can you? Truth is
not something static; it has no
fixed abode; it is not an end, a goal. On the contrary, it is
living, dynamic, alert, alive. How can it be
an end? If truth is a fixed point it is no longer truth; it is
then a mere opinion. Truth is the unknown,
and a mind that is seeking truth will never find it, for mind is
made up of the known, it is the result
of the past, the outcome of time - which you can observe for
yourself. Mind is the instrument of the
known, hence it cannot find the unknown; it can only move from the
known to the known. When the
mind seeks truth, the truth it has read about in books, that ‘truth’
is self-projected; for then the mind
is merely in pursuit of the known, a more satisfactory known than
the previous one. When the mind
seeks truth, it is seeking its own self-projection, not truth.
After all, an ideal is self-projected; it is
fictitious, unreal. What is real is what is, not the opposite. But
a mind that is seeking reality, seeking
God, is seeking the known. When you think of God, your God is the
projection of your own thought,
the result of social influences. You can think only of the known;
you cannot think of the unknown, you
cannot concentrate on truth. The moment you think of the unknown,
it is merely the self-projected
known. God or truth cannot be thought about. If you think about
it, it is not truth. Truth cannot be
sought: it comes to you. You can go only after what is known. When
the mind is not tortured by the
known, by the effects of the known, then only can truth reveal
itself. Truth is in every leaf, in every
tear; it is to be known from moment to moment. No one can lead you
to truth; and if anyone leads
The First And Last Freedom 88 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 25. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 3 ’WHY SPIRITUAL
TEACHERS?’
you, it can only be to the known.
Truth can only come to the mind that is empty of the known. It
comes in a state in which the known
is absent, not functioning. The mind is the warehouse of the
known, the residue of the known; for
the mind to be in that state in which the unknown comes into
being, it must be aware of itself, of
its previous experiences, the conscious as well as the
unconscious, of its responses, reactions, and
structure. When there is complete self-knowledge, then there is
the ending of the known, then the
mind is completely empty of the known. It is only then that truth
can come to you uninvited. Truth
does not belong to you or to me. You cannot worship it. The moment
it is known, it is unreal. The
symbol is not real, the image is not real; but when there is the
understanding of self, the cessation
of self, then eternity comes into being.
The First And Last Freedom 89 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 26
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 4 ’ON KNOWLEDGE’
Question: I gather definitely from you that learning and knowledge
are impediments. To what are
they impediments?
Krishnamurti: Obviously knowledge and learning are an impediment
to the understanding of the
new, the timeless, the eternal. Developing a perfect technique
does not make you creative. You may
know how to paint marvellously, you may have the technique; but
you may not be a creative painter.
You may know how to write poems, technically most perfect; but you
may not be a poet. To be a
poet implies, does it not?, being capable of receiving the new; to
be sensitive enough to respond to
something new, fresh. With most of us knowledge or learning has
become an addiction and we think
that through knowing we shall be creative. A mind that is crowded,
encased in facts, in knowledge
- is it capable of receiving something new, sudden, spontaneous?
If your mind is crowded with the
known, is there any space in it to receive something that is of
the unknown? Surely knowledge is
always of the known; and with the known we are trying to
understand the unknown, something which
is beyond measure.
Take, for example, a very ordinary thing that happens to most of
us: those who are religious -
whatever that word may mean for the moment - try to imagine what
God is or try to think about what
God is. They have read innumerable books, they have read about the
experiences of the various
saints, the Masters, the Mahatma and all the rest, and they try to
imagine or try to feel what the
experience of another is; that is with the known you try to
approach the unknown. Can you do it?
Can you think of something that is not knowable? You can only
think of something that you know.
But there is this extraordinary perversion taking place in the
world at the present time: we think we
shall understand if we have more information, more books, more
facts, more printed matter.
To be aware of something that is not the projection of the known,
there must be the elimination,
through the understanding, of the process of the known. Why is it
that the mind clings always to the
90
CHAPTER 26. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 4 ’ON KNOWLEDGE’
known? Is it not because the mind is constantly seeking certainty,
security? Its very nature is fixed
in the known, in time; how can such a mind, whose very foundation
is based on the past, on time,
experience the timeless? it may conceive, formulate, picture the
unknown, but that is all absurd.
The unknown can come into being only when the known is understood,
dissolved, put aside. That
is extremely difficult, because the moment you have an experience
of anything, the mind translates
it into the terms of the known and reduces it to the past. I do
not know if you have noticed that every
experience is immediately translated in1o the known, given a name,
tabulated and recorded. So the
movement of the known is knowledge, and obviously such knowledge,
learning, is a hindrance.
Suppose you had never read a book, religious or psychological, and
you had to find the meaning,
the significance of life. How would you set about it? Suppose
there were no Masters, no religious
organizations, no Buddha, no Christ, and you had to begin from the
beginning. How would you set
about it? First, you would have to understand your process of
thinking, would you not? - and not
project yourself, your thoughts, into the future and create a God
which pleases you; that would be
too childish. So first you would have to understand the process of
your thinking. That is the only way
to discover anything new, is it not?
When we say that learning or knowledge is an impediment, a
hindrance, we are not including
technical knowledge - how to drive a car, how to run machinery -
or the efficiency which such
knowledge brings. We have in mind quite a different thing: that
sense of creative happiness which
no amount of knowledge or learning will bring. To be creative in
the truest sense of that word is to
be free of the past from moment to moment, because it is the past
that is continually shadowing
the present. Merely to cling to information, to the experiences of
others, to what someone has said,
however great, and try to approximate your action to that - all
that is knowledge, is it not? But to
discover anything new you must start on your own; you must start
on a journey completely denuded,
especially of knowledge, because it is very easy, through
knowledge and belief, to have experiences;
but those experiences are merely the products of self-projection
and therefore utterly unreal, false.
If you are to discover for yourself what is the new, it is no good
carrying the burden of the old,
especially knowledge - the knowledge of another, however great.
You use knowledge as a means
of self-protection, security, and you want to be quite sure that
you have the same experiences as
the Buddha or the Christ or X. But a man who is protecting himself
constantly through knowledge is
obviously not a truth-seeker.
For the discovery of truth there is no path. You must enter the
uncharted sea - which is not
depressing, which is not being adventurous. When you want to find
something new, when you
are experimenting with anything, your mind has to be very quiet,
has it not? If your mind is crowded,
filled with facts, knowledge, they act as an impediment to the
new; the difficulty is for most of us
that the mind has become so important, so predominantly
significant, that it interferes constantly
with anything that may be new, with anything that may exist
simultaneously with the known. Thus
knowledge and learning are impediments for those who would seek,
for those who would try to
understand that which is timeless.
The First And Last Freedom 91 Jiddu
Krishnamurti
CHAPTER 27
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 5 ’ON DISCIPLINE’
Question: All religions have insisted on some kind of
self-discipline to moderate the instincts of the
brute in man. Through self-discipline the saints and mystics have
asserted that they have attained
godhood. Now you seem to imply that such disciplines are a
hindrance to the realization of God. I
am confused. Who is right in this matter?
Krishnamurti: It is not a question of who is right in this matter.
What is important is to find out the
truth of the matter for ourselves - not according to a particular
saint or to a person who comes from
India or from some other place, the more exotic the better.
You are caught between these two: someone says discipline, another
says no discipline. Generally
what happens is that you choose what is more convenient, what is
more satisfying: you like the man,
his looks, his personal idiosyncrasies, his personal favouritism
and all the rest of it. Putting all that
aside, let us examine this question directly and find out the
truth of the matter for ourselves. In this
question a great deal is implied and we have to approach it very
cautiously and tentatively.
Most of us want someone in authority to tell us what to do. We
look for a direction in conduct,
because our instinct is to be safe, not to suffer more. Someone is
said to have realized happiness,
bliss or what you will and we hope that he will tell us what to do
to arrive there. That is what we
want: we want that same happiness, that same inward quietness,
joy; and in this mad world of
confusion we want someone to tell us what to do. That is really
the basic instinct with most of us
and, according to that instinct, we pattern our action. Is God, is
that highest thing, unnameable
and not to be measured by words - is that come by through
discipline, through following a particular
pattern of action? We want to arrive at a particular goal,
particular end, and we think that by practice,
by discipline, by suppressing or releasing, sublimating or
substituting, we shall be able to find that
which we are seeking.
92
CHAPTER 27. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION 5 ’ON DISCIPLINE’
What is implied in discipline? Why do we discipline ourselves, if
we do? Can discipline and
intelligence go together? Most people feel that we must, through
some kind of discipline, subjugate
or control the brute, the ugly thing in us. Is that brute, that
ugly thing, controllable through discipline?
What do we mean by discipline? A course of action which promises a
reward, a course of action
which, if pursued, will give us what we want - it may be positive
or negative; a pattern of conduct
which, if practised diligently, sedulously, very, very ardently,
will give me in the end what I want. It
may be painful but I am willing to go through it to get that. The
self, which is aggressive, selfish,
hypocritical, anxious, fearful - you know, all of it - that self, which is the cause of the brute in